Route reliability record
DTW→PHL
Detroit to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 3,000
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 453 mi
- Carriers
- 7
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,000 DTW to PHL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,582 at 80.1% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.5%, against 78.4% 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
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,878 completed flights
Avg delay
99 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.1% on time across 1,582 flights
These figures cover 3,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 PHL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 56 | 96.4% | 68 min | 1.79% | A |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 107 | 86.7% | 217 min | 0.93% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 81 | 81.5% | 96 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,582 | 80.1% | 79 min | 2.40% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 1,011 | 76.9% | 116 min | 7.12% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 71 | 61.2% | 95 min | 2.82% | D |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 54.4% | 126 min | 2.17% | F |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to PHL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Philadelphia
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → PHLDetroit to Philadelphia | Delta Air Lines | 78.2% | 80.1% | 2.40% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2968 07:05 |
| 2. DTW → PHLDetroit to Philadelphia | PSA Airlines | 71.4% | 76.9% | 7.12% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am683 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am438 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm358 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm644 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm462 flights70.4%
- 8pm–5am415 flights80.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 67.7% for the afternoon window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 683 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to PHL 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 PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 67.7%, a wide gap of 20.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.0%
- 8–11am84.6%
- 11am–2pm79.4%
- 2–5pm67.7%
- 5–8pm70.4%
- 8pm–5am80.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
December is the weak month at 64.8% on time, against 87.2% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 315 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 62,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 62,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 61,686 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 21,000 of the 62,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.87%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 actually costs
10.2% 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 453 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 79.1% on time across 3,000 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,000 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.87% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,878 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to PHL questions
How often is DTW to PHL delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.6% of the 3,000 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to PHL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 80.1% on time across 1,582 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 76.9%, a gap of 3 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.7%, 20 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 December delays on DTW to PHL?
December is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 87.2% in September. Across the year that is 22 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
- PHL to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DTW to PHL86.7%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to PHL80.1%
- PSA Airlines on DTW to PHL76.9%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record96.4%
- American Airlines on-time record86.7%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record81.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DTW to PHL and PHL 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.