Route reliability record
DTW→SYR
Detroit to Syracuse
- Flights
- 725
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 374 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 725 DTW to SYR flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to SYR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Friday flights 79.8%, 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 716 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.2% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 725 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 SYR
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 | 5 | 80.0% | 19 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 78.2% | 55 min | 2.19% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 355 | 74.9% | 91 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to SYR
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am98 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am79 flights63.3%
- 11am–2pm84 flights72.6%
- 2pm–5pm101 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am363 flights78.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.8% of the time, against 63.3% for the morning window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to SYR 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 SYR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.8% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 63.3%, a wide gap of 25.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.8%
- 8–11am63.3%
- 11am–2pm72.6%
- 2–5pm72.0%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am78.3%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 41 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 55.8% on time, against 96.7% in April. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.6%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 68% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 68%Carrier
- 14%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 9%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 12,356 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,361 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 374 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 725 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 725 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 SYR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 725 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. 716 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to SYR questions
How often is DTW to SYR 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 725 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DTW to SYR 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 SYR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 63.3%, 26 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 SYR?
January is the weakest month at 55.8% on time, compared with 96.7% in April. Across the year that is 41 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
- SYR to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to SYR78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to SYR74.9%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to SYR, a related route74.7%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record74.9%
- 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 SYR and SYR 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.