Route reliability record
DTW→OMA
Detroit to Omaha
- Flights
- 1,148
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 650 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,148 DTW to OMA flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to OMA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.5% of the time and Friday flights 80.4%, against 75.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,139 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
75.5% on time across 1,144 flights
These figures cover 1,148 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to OMA
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,144 | 75.5% | 90 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 64 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to OMA
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.
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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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am346 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm138 flights82.5%
- 2pm–5pm309 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm326 flights69.4%
- 8pm–5am29 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.5% of the time, against 69.4% for the evening window. That is 13 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 346 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to OMA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DTW to OMA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 82.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.4%, a wide gap of 13.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.5%
- 11am–2pm82.5%
- 2–5pm71.6%
- 5–8pm69.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 44 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 46.4% on time, against 90.8% in September. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 71.9%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 76% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 76%Carrier
- 15%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 15% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 24,984 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 76%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 650 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.2% on time across 1,148 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,148 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 OMA 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. September runs 90.8% on time and December 46.4%, a swing of 44 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,139 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to OMA questions
How often is DTW to OMA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.5% of the 1,148 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DTW to OMA compared with the rest of the country?
75.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to OMA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.4%, 13 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 OMA?
December is the weakest month at 46.4% on time, compared with 90.8% in September. Across the year that is 44 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
- OMA to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Eppley Airfield (OMA) delay statistics
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- DEN to OMA, a related route76.9%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.0%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to OMA and OMA to DTW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.