Carrier route record
DLFLL→DTW
Delta Air Lines · Fort Lauderdale to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,810
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on FLL to DTW lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,810 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on FLL to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,780 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.3%
Every carrier on FLL to DTW, 2,705 flights
These figures cover 1,810 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on FLL to DTW
Delta flew 1,810 of the 2,705 flights on FLL to DTW, most of the route. Its 78.6% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 78.6% to Frontier at 55.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,810 | 78.6% | 70 min | 1.55% | B |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 108 | 69.2% | 71 min | 3.70% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 640 | 58.3% | 74 min | 3.28% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 147 | 55.6% | 81 min | 3.40% | D− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on FLL to DTW
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am324 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am117 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm447 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm549 flights73.4%
- 5pm–8pm147 flights73.4%
- 8pm–5am226 flights63.7%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.7% on time, against 92.8% 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 549 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on FLL to DTW through the year
December is the weak month at 64.2% on time, against 90.6% in June. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 186 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.4%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on FLL to DTW runs when it is late
Delta on FLL to DTW often beats the schedule: 497 of 1,780 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 381 late arrivals split 131 under half an hour, 113 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 137 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early497 flights27.9%
- Within 15 min902 flights50.7%
- 15–29 min late131 flights7.4%
- 30–59 min late113 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late79 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late58 flights3.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,780 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
62 of 370 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 73 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on FLL to DTW
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 March 2026, 8 hours 45 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 March 2026 | 8 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 November 2025 | 8 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 March 2026 | 8 hours | Carrier |
| 24 December 2025 | 7 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 January 2026 | 6 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 to one. The split is drawn from 26,672 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 92.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.7% 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.
The 1,127 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.6% on time across 1,808 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,810 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 Delta on FLL to DTW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. June runs 90.6% on time and December 64.2%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,780 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to DTW, every carrier
- Delta on DTW to FLL, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to DTW69.2%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to DTW58.3%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to DTW55.6%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.