Route reliability record
DTW→PIT
Detroit to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,006
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 201 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,006 DTW to PIT flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to PIT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.2% of the time and Saturday flights 82.5%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 998 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
72.7% on time across 539 flights
These figures cover 1,006 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to PIT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 342 | 85.3% | 58 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 125 | 82.0% | 64 min | 1.60% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 539 | 72.7% | 85 min | 0.74% | C+ |
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 18 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–8am—
- 8am–11am450 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm120 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm110 flights66.4%
- 5pm–8pm115 flights68.7%
- 8pm–5am211 flights77.9%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.2% of the time, against 66.4% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 450 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 42 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.
January is the weak month at 49.5% on time, against 91.9% in October. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.7%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 17,000 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.
- 67%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 4%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 18% 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 2.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 16,767 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, 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 11,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% 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 201 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 80.3% on time across 1,007 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. 1,006 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PIT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,006 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 78.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 998 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to PIT questions
How often is DTW to PIT delayed?
Roughly 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 21.8% of the 1,006 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DTW to PIT compared with the rest of the country?
78.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to PIT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.4%, 18 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 January delays on DTW to PIT?
January is the weakest month at 49.5% on time, compared with 91.9% in October. Across the year that is 42 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
- PIT to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DTW to PIT85.3%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to PIT82.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to PIT72.7%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ORD to PIT, a related route74.9%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record85.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to PIT and PIT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.