Carrier route record
DLDTW→ORF
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Norfolk
- Flights
- 564
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 79%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to ORF lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 564 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on DTW to ORF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 557 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.89%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on DTW to ORF, 715 flights
These figures cover 564 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DTW to ORF
Delta flew 564 of the 715 flights on DTW to ORF, most of the route. Its 77.4% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to SkyWest at 68.9%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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
When Delta runs best on this route
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 564 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am123 flights76.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm174 flights82.2%
- 5pm–8pm20 flights—
- 8pm–5am247 flights75.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 82.2% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 75.5%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 247 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to ORF through the year
July is the worst month at 67.7% on time, 20 points below October, the best at 87.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on DTW to ORF runs when it is late
Delta on DTW to ORF often beats the schedule: 178 of 557 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 126 late arrivals split 44 under half an hour, 39 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 43 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early178 flights32.0%
- Within 15 min253 flights45.4%
- 15–29 min late44 flights7.9%
- 30–59 min late39 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late32 flights5.7%
- 2+ hours late11 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 557 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 114 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. 27 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on DTW to ORF
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 April 2026, 14 hours 38 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 April 2026 | 14 hours 38 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 May 2026 | 9 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 3 February 2026 | 4 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 June 2026 | 2 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 January 2026 | 2 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 8,249 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,205 of the 8,249 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,249 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.89%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.7% 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 about 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 81.0% on time across 564 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 564 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on DTW to ORF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 564 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 77.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 557 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.