Carrier route record
DLDTW→PHX
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Phoenix
- Flights
- 1,333
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 55%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to PHX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,333 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on DTW to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,323 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.6%
Every carrier on DTW to PHX, 2,425 flights
These figures cover 1,333 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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
Delta against every carrier on DTW to PHX
Delta flew 1,333 of the 2,425 flights on DTW to PHX, most of the route. Its 74.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 85.8% to Delta at 74.7%. Three 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 | 124 | 85.8% | 71 min | 1.61% | A |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 80.0% | 34 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 628 | 79.7% | 105 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 310 | 75.1% | 112 min | 1.29% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,333 | 74.7% | 64 min | 0.53% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DTW to PHX
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 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–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am364 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm299 flights79.7%
- 2pm–5pm176 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm155 flights59.5%
- 8pm–5am337 flights71.3%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 81.2% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to PHX through the year
December is the weak month at 52.5% on time, against 90.4% in March. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 125 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.3%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 21,000 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 10,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,347 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, below the national 1.81% 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
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
At 1,671 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.3% on time across 1,331 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,333 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on DTW to PHX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 90.4% on time and December 52.5%, a swing of 38 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,323 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to PHX, every carrier
- Delta on PHX to DTW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to PHX85.8%
- American Airlines on DTW to PHX79.7%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to PHX75.1%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.