Route reliability record
ELM→DTW
Elmira to Detroit
- Flights
- 936
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 331 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 936 ELM to DTW flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly ELM to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Thursday flights 87.8%, against 83.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 921 completed flights
Avg delay
99 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.60%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
83.5% on time across 936 flights
These figures cover 936 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 ELM to DTW
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 | 936 | 83.5% | 99 min | 1.60% | B |
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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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm245 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm108 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm218 flights82.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 73.6% for the afternoon window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ELM to DTW 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 ELM to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 73.6%, a wide gap of 14.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm81.7%
- 2–5pm73.6%
- 5–8pm82.0%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 38 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.
December is the weak month at 59.5% on time, against 97.4% in September. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.5%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 27%Extreme weather
- 3%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 27% 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 4.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 15,047 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.1% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 331 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 77.1% on time across 936 flights, 6 points below 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 936 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 DTW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 936 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 83.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 921 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ELM to DTW questions
How often is ELM to DTW delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.5% of the 936 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is ELM to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
83.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ELM to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 73.6%, 15 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 December delays on ELM to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 59.5% on time, compared with 97.4% in September. Across the year that is 38 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
- DTW to ELM — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- ATL to DTW, a related route76.4%
- LGA to DTW, a related route77.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record83.5%
- 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. ELM to DTW and DTW to ELM 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.