Carrier route record
OODTW→ORF
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Norfolk
- Flights
- 150
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on DTW to ORF sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 150 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so SkyWest on DTW to ORF runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 84 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 148 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on DTW to ORF, 715 flights
These figures cover 150 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 ORF
SkyWest flew 150 of the 715 flights on DTW to ORF, about 21% of it. Its 68.9% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to SkyWest at 68.9%. One 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 | 564 | 77.4% | 66 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 150 | 68.9% | 79 min | 1.33% | C |
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Departure window
When SkyWest 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 150 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am79 flights70.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm71 flights67.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8am–11am window is the strongest at 70.1% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.
Across the year
SkyWest on DTW to ORF through the year
- Jul–Sep 202517 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202522 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202656 flights58.2%
- Apr–Jun 202631 flights80.6%
- Jul–Sep 202624 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 68.9% on time across 150 flights.
Split by quarter, SkyWest on DTW to ORF logged 17 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 22 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 56 flights in Jan–Mar 2026, 31 flights in Apr–Jun 2026 and 24 flights in Jul–Sep 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 68.9% annual figure is the one to use.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on DTW to ORF runs when it is late
The 46 late arrivals split 10 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early35 flights23.6%
- Within 15 min67 flights45.3%
- 15–29 min late10 flights6.8%
- 30–59 min late16 flights10.8%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights8.1%
- 2+ hours late8 flights5.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 148 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 37 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 11 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 ORF.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on DTW to ORF
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 March 2026, 5 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Four of the five worst days fell in March 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 March 2026 | 5 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 March 2026 | 5 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 3 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 April 2026 | 3 hours 10 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 March 2026 | 2 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 71% of the 3,646 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 71%Carrier
- 16%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 3,646 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 71%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,599 of the 3,646 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.33% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
13.5% 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.
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 runs 70.9% on time across 150 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 150 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 SkyWest on DTW to ORF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 150 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 68.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 148 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.