Route reliability record
DTW→ORD
Detroit to Chicago
- Flights
- 6,014
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 235 mi
- Carriers
- 8
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 6,014 DTW to ORD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 453 at 81.8% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 80.1% of the time and Saturday flights 75.2%, against 72.2% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 81.8% on time across 453 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,821 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
81.8% on time across 453 flights
These figures cover 6,014 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 81.8% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 68.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,563 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 47 | 90.2% | 142 min | 12.77% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 453 | 81.8% | 101 min | 5.08% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 946 | 79.2% | 89 min | 3.49% | B− |
| United Airlines | 827 | 73.5% | 76 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,156 | 69.9% | 81 min | 3.20% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,563 | 68.5% | 98 min | 3.12% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 60.0% | 103 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 1287 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Republic Airways cancels 5.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to ORD
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Chicago
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. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Republic Airways | 77.6% | 81.8% | 5.08% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Envoy Air | 76.4% | 79.2% | 3.49% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | United Airlines | 72.8% | 73.5% | 0.97% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 426 09:00 |
| 4. DTW → MDWDetroit to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 71.5% | 72.4% | 1.24% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 5. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Delta Air Lines | 67.7% | 69.9% | 3.20% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1665 20:00 |
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 24 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,336 flights80.1%
- 8am–11am1,228 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm1,028 flights74.1%
- 2pm–5pm853 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm1,075 flights55.8%
- 8pm–5am494 flights65.4%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.8% on time, against 80.1% 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 1,336 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to ORD 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 ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 80.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.8%, a wide gap of 24.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am80.1%
- 8–11am79.3%
- 11am–2pm74.1%
- 2–5pm71.3%
- 5–8pm55.8%
- 8pm–5am65.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 55.0% on time, against 80.8% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 600 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 149,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 62,000 of the 149,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 148,958 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.11%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
12.1% 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.
At 235 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 71.1% on time across 6,013 flights, within about a point 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 6,014 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 ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.11% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 5,821 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to ORD questions
How often is DTW to ORD delayed?
Roughly 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 27.8% of the 6,014 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to ORD?
Republic Airways leads at 81.8% on time across 453 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 68.5%, a gap of 13 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 ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 80.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.8%, 24 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 ORD?
December is the weakest month at 55.0% on time, compared with 80.8% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- ORD to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DTW to ORD81.8%
- Envoy Air on DTW to ORD79.2%
- United Airlines on DTW to ORD73.5%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to ORD69.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to ORD68.5%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- DTW to LGA, a related route74.7%
- American Airlines on-time record90.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DTW to ORD and ORD 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.