Route reliability record
DTW→RSW
Detroit to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 1,774
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,774 DTW to RSW flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to RSW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.7% of the time and Thursday flights 80.7%, against 74.5% 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,733 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
75.4% on time across 1,357 flights
These figures cover 1,774 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 RSW
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 | 1,357 | 75.4% | 69 min | 1.18% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 337 | 71.7% | 58 min | 5.64% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 80 | 71.2% | 74 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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.
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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.
- 5am–8am170 flights83.7%
- 8am–11am640 flights77.0%
- 11am–2pm87 flights67.9%
- 2pm–5pm450 flights73.3%
- 5pm–8pm276 flights72.2%
- 8pm–5am151 flights65.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.7% of the time, against 65.3% for the overnight 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 640 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to RSW 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 RSW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.3%, a wide gap of 18.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.7%
- 8–11am77.0%
- 11am–2pm67.9%
- 2–5pm73.3%
- 5–8pm72.2%
- 8pm–5am65.3%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
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 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 29,733 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.97% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
The return leg runs 74.7% on time across 1,773 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 1,774 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. 1,733 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 25.5% of the 1,774 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DTW to RSW compared with the rest of the country?
74.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to RSW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.3%, 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 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 RSW75.4%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to RSW71.7%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to RSW, a related route75.6%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record71.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.