Route reliability record
DTW→ORF
Detroit to Norfolk
- Flights
- 715
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 529 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 715 DTW to ORF flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to ORF: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 78.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.4%, against 75.6% 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 706 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.4% on time across 564 flights
These figures cover 715 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 ORF
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 564 | 77.4% | 66 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 150 | 68.9% | 79 min | 1.33% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 715 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am202 flights73.9%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm245 flights78.0%
- 5pm–8pm20 flights—
- 8pm–5am247 flights75.5%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 2pm–5pm window is the strongest at 78.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 4 points.
Explore
Filter DTW to ORF 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 ORF, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 78.0% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 73.9%, a narrow gap of 4.1 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am73.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm78.0%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am75.5%
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 20 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 85.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 86 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.0%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,804 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,895 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 529 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 78.9% on time across 715 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 715 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 715 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 75.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 706 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to ORF questions
How often is DTW to ORF 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 24.4% of the 715 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DTW to ORF compared with the rest of the country?
75.6% 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 ORF?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 78.0% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 73.9%, 4 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 March delays on DTW to ORF?
March is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 85.7% in October. Across the year that is 20 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
- ORF to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to ORF77.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to ORF68.9%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ATL to ORF, a related route78.7%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record68.9%
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. DTW to ORF and ORF 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.