Carrier route record
YXEWR→DTW
Republic Airways · Newark to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,510
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 40%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on EWR to DTW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than 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 1,510 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,621 at 78.6% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Republic's EWR to DTW record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,429 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.30%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.2%
Every carrier on EWR to DTW, 3,782 flights
These figures cover 1,510 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on EWR to DTW
Republic flew 1,510 of the 3,782 flights on EWR to DTW, about 40% of it. Its 83.3% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.4% to Spirit at 68.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.6% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 553 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 98 | 84.4% | 50 min | 2.04% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,510 | 83.3% | 72 min | 5.30% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,621 | 78.6% | 104 min | 3.52% | B− |
| Spirit Airlines | 553 | 68.7% | 75 min | 7.96% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 8.0% 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
Republic flight numbers on EWR to DTW
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am84 flights96.4%
- 8am–11am259 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm205 flights91.8%
- 2pm–5pm503 flights82.4%
- 5pm–8pm244 flights81.8%
- 8pm–5am215 flights70.8%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.4% of the time, against 70.8% for the overnight 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 503 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on EWR to DTW through the year
July is the worst month at 68.5% on time, 26 points below May, the best at 94.1%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 149 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 81.6%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
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 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 17,083 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 96.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.30%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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 costs
6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.6% on time across 1,491 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,510 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.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on EWR to DTW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.30% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,429 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to DTW, every carrier
- Republic on DTW to EWR, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on EWR to DTW78.6%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to DTW68.7%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.