Route reliability record
EWR→DTW
Newark to Detroit
- Flights
- 3,660
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 488 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,660 EWR to DTW flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,558 at 84.4% on time.
Best time to fly EWR to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.9%, against 79.9% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 84.4% on time across 1,558 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,451 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
84.4% on time across 1,558 flights
These figures cover 3,660 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 EWR to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 84.4% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 65.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 433 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,558 | 84.4% | 70 min | 6.68% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,612 | 79.6% | 108 min | 4.03% | B− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 57 | 75.0% | 47 min | 1.75% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 433 | 65.7% | 75 min | 8.31% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 8.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR to DTW
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark to Detroit
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → DTWNewark to Detroit | Republic Airways | 78.8% | 84.4% | 6.68% | 5am–8am, Tue | YX 3437 16:00 |
| 2. LGA → DTWNew York to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 77.7% | 81.0% | 4.09% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1231 06:00 |
| 3. JFK → DTWNew York to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 77.2% | 80.2% | 3.77% | 11am–2pm, Tue | DL 2443 16:30 |
| 4. EWR → DTWNewark to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 76.4% | 79.6% | 4.03% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2596 06:00 |
| 5. LGA → DTWNew York to Detroit | Republic Airways | 70.3% | 74.1% | 5.13% | 8am–11am, Fri | YX 4598 20:29 |
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 25 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am630 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am627 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm561 flights84.4%
- 2pm–5pm637 flights80.5%
- 5pm–8pm596 flights80.2%
- 8pm–5am609 flights62.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.3% on time, against 87.5% for the 5am–8am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 637 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter EWR 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 EWR to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 62.3%, a wide gap of 25.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.5%
- 8–11am83.7%
- 11am–2pm84.4%
- 2–5pm80.5%
- 5–8pm80.2%
- 8pm–5am62.3%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 65.4% on time, against 90.5% in May. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 359 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.5%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 61,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 60,631 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.63%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 488 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 runs 77.4% on time across 3,642 flights, within 3 points 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 3,660 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 DTW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.63% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,451 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to DTW questions
How often is EWR to DTW delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.1% of the 3,660 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on EWR to DTW?
Republic Airways leads at 84.4% on time across 1,558 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 65.7%, a gap of 19 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EWR to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.3%, 25 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 EWR to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 65.4% on time, compared with 90.5% in May. Across the year that is 25 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on EWR to DTW84.4%
- Delta Air Lines on EWR to DTW79.6%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to DTW65.7%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.9%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- EWR to ATL, a related route76.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record84.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.6%
- United Airlines on-time record75.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EWR to DTW and DTW to EWR 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.