Route reliability record
DTW→MIA
Detroit to Miami
- Flights
- 1,815
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,145 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,815 DTW to MIA flights, of which American Airlines flew 394 at 89.4% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to MIA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.9%, against 80.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,786 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
89.4% on time across 394 flights
These figures cover 1,815 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to MIA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 89.4% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 78.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 965 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 394 | 89.4% | 102 min | 1.27% | A |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 87 | 79.3% | 67 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 295 | 79.3% | 66 min | 3.39% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 965 | 78.4% | 55 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 10 | 70.0% | 30 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 64 | 66.7% | 96 min | 1.56% | C |
American leads Delta by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to MIA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Miami
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → MIADetroit to Miami | American Airlines | 88.3% | 89.4% | 1.27% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1020 06:00 |
| 2. DTW → MIADetroit to Miami | Delta Air Lines | 77.7% | 78.4% | 0.93% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 1468 08:25 |
| 3. DTW → FLLDetroit to Fort Lauderdale | Delta Air Lines | 73.1% | 74.2% | 1.43% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1378 10:05 |
| 4. DTW → FLLDetroit to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 68.3% | 70.0% | 2.49% | 8pm–5am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 37 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am667 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am225 flights88.2%
- 11am–2pm168 flights71.9%
- 2pm–5pm328 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm380 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am47 flights51.1%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.1% on time, against 88.2% for the 8am–11am 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 667 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 62.4% on time, against 92.3% in June. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 226 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.3%. 19 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. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 23,000 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 10,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 22,679 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,145 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 1,813 flights, 8 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,815 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MIA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. June runs 92.3% on time and December 62.4%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,786 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to MIA questions
How often is DTW to MIA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.5% of the 1,815 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to MIA?
American Airlines leads at 89.4% on time across 394 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 78.4%, a gap of 11 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 MIA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.1%, 37 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 MIA?
December is the weakest month at 62.4% on time, compared with 92.3% in June. Across the year that is 30 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
- MIA to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DTW to MIA89.4%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to MIA79.3%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to MIA78.4%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ATL to MIA, a related route71.0%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- American Airlines on-time record89.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.3%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to MIA and MIA to DTW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DTW to MIA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.