Route reliability record
DTW→PVD
Detroit to Providence
- Flights
- 840
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 615 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 840 DTW to PVD flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to PVD: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.6% of the time and Thursday flights 78.6%, against 76.5% 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
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 818 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
75.7% on time across 746 flights
These figures cover 840 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 PVD
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 Linesthin sample | 94 | 83.1% | 71 min | 5.32% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 746 | 75.7% | 86 min | 2.01% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Providence
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → PVDDetroit to Providence | SkyWest Airlines | 74.2% | 75.7% | 2.01% | 8am–11am, Thu (route) | — |
| 2. DTW → BOSDetroit to Boston | Delta Air Lines | 73.1% | 74.6% | 1.98% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 1163 07:00 |
| 3. DTW → BOSDetroit to Boston | JetBlue Airways | 67.6% | 70.9% | 4.69% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am219 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm309 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm6 flights—
- 8pm–5am306 flights75.4%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.6% of the time, against 72.1% for the afternoon window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 309 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to PVD 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 PVD, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.1%, a wide gap of 11.5 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am75.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 49.0% on time, against 90.8% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 73.0%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 69% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 69%Carrier
- 25%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
- 0%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 25% 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 4.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 16,272 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 69%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% 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 615 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 76.2% on time across 840 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 840 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 PVD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 840 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 76.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 818 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to PVD questions
How often is DTW to PVD delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.5% of the 840 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DTW to PVD compared with the rest of the country?
76.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to PVD?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 12 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 PVD?
January is the weakest month at 49.0% on time, compared with 90.8% 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
- PVD to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- DCA to PVD, a related route72.5%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. DTW to PVD and PVD 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.