Carrier route record
OHDTW→PHL
PSA Airlines · Detroit to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 846
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on DTW to PHL carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 846 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate PSA on DTW to PHL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 799 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.20%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.5%
Every carrier on DTW to PHL, 2,952 flights
These figures cover 846 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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
PSA against every carrier on DTW to PHL
PSA flew 846 of the 2,952 flights on DTW to PHL, about 29% of it. Its 79.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.1% to SkyWest at 61.5%. Five 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,557 | 80.1% | 77 min | 2.06% | B |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 846 | 79.5% | 91 min | 5.20% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 132 | 78.8% | 79 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 112 | 73.6% | 88 min | 5.36% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 179 | 72.3% | 129 min | 0.56% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 57 | 69.1% | 55 min | 3.51% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 69 | 61.5% | 93 min | 2.90% | D |
Departure window
When PSA runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am278 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am48 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm233 flights78.6%
- 2pm–5pm135 flights66.4%
- 5pm–8pm151 flights80.0%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.7% of the time, against 66.4% for the afternoon window. That is 19 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 278 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DTW to PHL through the year
December is the weak month at 65.1% on time, against 89.5% in May. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 107 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.6%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 15,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 14,976 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.20%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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. 9.4% 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.3% on time across 845 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 846 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 PSA on DTW to PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.20% 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. 799 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to PHL, every carrier
- PSA on PHL to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to PHL80.1%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to PHL78.8%
- Republic Airways on DTW to PHL73.6%
- American Airlines on DTW to PHL72.3%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.