Route reliability record
DTW→LGA
Detroit to New York
- Flights
- 4,011
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 502 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,011 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,979 at 77.3% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.3% on time across 1,979 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,796 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.11%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
77.3% on time across 1,979 flights
These figures cover 4,011 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 77.3% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 69.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 999 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,979 | 77.3% | 69 min | 3.49% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,033 | 77.0% | 82 min | 5.81% | B− |
| Spirit Airlines | 999 | 69.6% | 77 min | 7.61% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 7.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am777 flights86.1%
- 8am–11am740 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm566 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm582 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm770 flights61.5%
- 8pm–5am576 flights69.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 86.1% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 777 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 65.0% on time, against 83.3% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 386 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 70,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 32,000 minutes out of 70,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 69,748 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.11%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 502 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 78.0% on time across 4,011 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,011 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.11% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,796 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to LGA questions
How often is DTW to LGA delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.6% of the 4,011 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 77.3% on time across 1,979 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 69.6%, a gap of 8 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.5%, 25 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on DTW to LGA?
December is the weakest month at 65.0% on time, compared with 83.3% in August. Across the year that is 18 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record69.6%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. DTW to LGA and LGA to DTW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.