Carrier route record
DLDTW→TVC
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Traverse City
- Flights
- 378
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to TVC sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 378 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on DTW to TVC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 371 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.9%
Every carrier on DTW to TVC, 1,079 flights
These figures cover 378 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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
Delta against every carrier on DTW to TVC
Delta flew 378 of the 1,079 flights on DTW to TVC, about 35% of it. Its 75.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 76.3% to Delta at 75.2%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 701 | 76.3% | 83 min | 2.28% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 378 | 75.2% | 64 min | 1.85% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DTW to TVC
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 378 flights.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 75.2% on time across 362 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to TVC through the year
July is the worst month at 40.0% on time, 57 points below October, the best at 96.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 36 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.5%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 42% of the 5,842 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.
- 42%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 2,481 of the 5,842 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,842 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% 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 207 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 8pm–5am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.9% on time across 378 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 378 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on DTW to TVC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 378 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 75.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 371 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.