Carrier route record
OODTW→ORD
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,563
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 8
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest 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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 2,563 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
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,482 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on DTW to ORD, 6,014 flights
These figures cover 2,563 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
SkyWest against every carrier on DTW to ORD
SkyWest flew 2,563 of the 6,014 flights on DTW to ORD, about 43% of it. Its 68.5% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number six 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; Delta Air Lines manages 69.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,156 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 (this page) | 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.
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Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am790 flights76.2%
- 8am–11am554 flights77.0%
- 11am–2pm365 flights68.8%
- 2pm–5pm288 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm549 flights49.3%
- 8pm–5am17 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.3% on time, against 77.0% 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 790 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on DTW to ORD through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 84.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 270 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 74.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on DTW to ORD runs when it is late
The 781 late arrivals split 244 under half an hour, 191 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 346 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early571 flights23.0%
- Within 15 min1,130 flights45.5%
- 15–29 min late244 flights9.8%
- 30–59 min late191 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late152 flights6.1%
- 2+ hours late194 flights7.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,482 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 548 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 48 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 281 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 SkyWest on DTW to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 December 2025, 18 hours 39 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 December 2025 | 18 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 January 2026 | 17 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 December 2025 | 16 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 January 2026 | 15 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 February 2026 | 14 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 76,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 39,000 of the 76,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 76,456 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.12%, 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 64.6% on time across 2,563 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,563 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 SkyWest on DTW to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.12% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,482 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ORD, every carrier
- SkyWest 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%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to ORD69.9%
- SkyWest Airlines 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.