Route reliability record
DTW→SBN
Detroit to South Bend
- Flights
- 712
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 157 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 712 DTW to SBN flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 72 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 705 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
70.3% on time across 711 flights
These figures cover 712 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.0% 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 SBN
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 | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 711 | 70.3% | 101 min | 0.98% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to SBN
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 South Bend
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → AZODetroit to Kalamazoo | SkyWest Airlines | 73.5% | 74.9% | 1.81% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 3986 10:15 |
| 2. DTW → SBNDetroit to South Bend | SkyWest Airlines | 69.6% | 70.3% | 0.98% | 11am–2pm, Sat (route) | OO 3900 19:45 |
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 19 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–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm346 flights79.0%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm341 flights59.9%
- 8pm–5am23 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.9% on time, against 79.0% for the 11am–2pm 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 346 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 40 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 48.2% on time, against 88.3% in June. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 60.4%. 21 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 70% 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.
- 70%Carrier
- 22%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 22% 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 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 21,181 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, 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 15,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 16.0% 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 157 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.5% on time across 711 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 712 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 SBN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 712 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 70.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 705 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to SBN questions
How often is DTW to SBN delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.6% of the 712 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DTW to SBN compared with the rest of the country?
70.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 7 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 SBN?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 79.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.9%, 19 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 SBN?
January is the weakest month at 48.2% on time, compared with 88.3% in June. Across the year that is 40 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
- SBN to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ORD to SBN, a related route62.7%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record100.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record70.3%
- 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 SBN and SBN 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.