Carrier route record
DLDTW→ORD
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,156
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 8
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,156 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 453 at 81.8% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 81.8% on time across 453 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,115 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on DTW to ORD, 6,014 flights
These figures cover 1,156 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DTW to ORD
Delta flew 1,156 of the 6,014 flights on DTW to ORD, about 19% of it. Its 69.9% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of eight carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 90.2% to Spirit at 0.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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
Delta flight numbers on DTW to ORD
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
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–8am58 flights84.2%
- 8am–11am170 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm170 flights74.4%
- 2pm–5pm270 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm200 flights60.7%
- 8pm–5am288 flights61.8%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.7% on time, against 84.2% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 288 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to ORD through the year
December is the weak month at 58.1% on time, against 83.5% in February. 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 138 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.8%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on DTW to ORD runs when it is late
The 336 late arrivals split 96 under half an hour, 85 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 155 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early234 flights21.0%
- Within 15 min545 flights48.9%
- 15–29 min late96 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late85 flights7.6%
- 1–2 hours late89 flights8.0%
- 2+ hours late66 flights5.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,115 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 302 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 29 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 63 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on DTW to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 January 2026, 11 hours 22 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 January 2026 | 11 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 April 2026 | 8 hours 33 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 27 April 2026 | 7 hours 32 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 15 March 2026 | 6 hours 20 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 January 2026 | 6 hours 19 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 27,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 36%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
41% 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 11,000 minutes out of 27,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 27,315 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,719 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.20%, 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 costs
13.9% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.3% on time across 1,156 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,156 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 Delta on DTW to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.20% 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. 1,115 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ORD, every carrier
- Delta on ORD to DTW, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DTW to ORD81.8%
- Envoy Air on DTW to ORD79.2%
- United Airlines on DTW to ORD73.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to ORD68.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.