Carrier route record
OODTW→ORD
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,432
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 8
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 2,432 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 525 at 82.2% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 82.2% on time across 525 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,355 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.0%
Every carrier on DTW to ORD, 5,959 flights
These figures cover 2,432 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on DTW to ORD
SkyWest flew 2,432 of the 5,959 flights on DTW to ORD, about 41% of it. Its 69.0% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.0%. 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 82.2% of the time; United Airlines manages 70.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 815 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 | 525 | 82.2% | 102 min | 4.57% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 860 | 76.8% | 83 min | 3.60% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,258 | 70.9% | 82 min | 2.54% | C |
| United Airlines | 815 | 70.2% | 71 min | 1.35% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 2,432 | 69.0% | 97 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 4.6% 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.
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 30 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am686 flights76.3%
- 8am–11am594 flights77.9%
- 11am–2pm400 flights70.5%
- 2pm–5pm263 flights65.5%
- 5pm–8pm472 flights47.9%
- 8pm–5am17 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.9% on time, against 77.9% 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 686 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 64.6%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 53% of the 71,000 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.
- 53%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, 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 38,000 of the 71,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 70,776 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.12%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 64.0% on time across 2,433 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,432 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. 2,355 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 ORD82.2%
- Envoy Air on DTW to ORD76.8%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to ORD70.9%
- United Airlines on DTW to ORD70.2%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.