Route reliability record
DTW→RSW
Detroit to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 1,820
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,084 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 1,820 DTW to RSW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,354 at 75.1% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to RSW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.3% of the time and Thursday flights 82.1%, against 74.7% 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
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,777 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
75.1% on time across 1,354 flights
These figures cover 1,820 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to RSW
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,354 | 75.1% | 68 min | 1.33% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 386 | 73.8% | 61 min | 4.92% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 80 | 71.2% | 74 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.9% 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 RSW
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Fort Myers
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 → RSWDetroit to Fort Myers | Delta Air Lines | 74.1% | 75.1% | 1.33% | 5am–8am, Thu | DL 2556 08:30 |
| 2. DTW → RSWDetroit to Fort Myers | Spirit Airlines | 70.2% | 73.8% | 4.92% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am188 flights85.3%
- 8am–11am633 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm87 flights67.9%
- 2pm–5pm485 flights73.5%
- 5pm–8pm276 flights72.2%
- 8pm–5am151 flights65.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.3% of the time, against 65.3% for the overnight 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 633 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 64.0% on time, against 92.2% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 289 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.1%. 14 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 45% of the 30,000 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 13,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 29,913 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.03% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.4% 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.
The 1,084 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 75.0% on time across 1,820 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 1,820 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 RSW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 92.2% on time and January 64.0%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,777 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to RSW questions
How often is DTW to RSW 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 25.3% of the 1,820 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to RSW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 75.1% on time across 1,354 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 73.8%, a gap of about a point. 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 RSW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.3%, 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 January delays on DTW to RSW?
January is the weakest month at 64.0% on time, compared with 92.2% in October. Across the year that is 28 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
- RSW to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to RSW75.1%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to RSW73.8%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ORD to RSW, a related route76.1%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record73.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. DTW to RSW and RSW 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.