Route reliability record
GRR→DTW
Grand Rapids to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,620
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 120 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points 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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,620 GRR to DTW flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly GRR to DTW: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Saturday flights 83.5%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,605 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.86%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
78.1% on time across 1,459 flights
These figures cover 1,620 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 GRR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 144 | 94.4% | 46 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,459 | 78.1% | 106 min | 0.96% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 17 | 76.5% | 98 min | 0.00% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Grand Rapids 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. GRR → DTWGrand Rapids to Detroit | SkyWest Airlines | 77.4% | 78.1% | 0.96% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. AZO → DTWKalamazoo to Detroit | SkyWest Airlines | 75.2% | 77.2% | 2.55% | 5am–8am, Thu | OO 3980 05:30 |
| 3. LAN → DTWLansing to Detroit | SkyWest Airlines | 74.1% | 74.7% | 0.84% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 4060 05:35 |
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am188 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am555 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm43 flights90.7%
- 2pm–5pm461 flights75.4%
- 5pm–8pm348 flights76.2%
- 8pm–5am25 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 90.7% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 75.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 555 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter GRR 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 GRR to DTW, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 90.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.4%, a wide gap of 15.3 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am86.0%
- 8–11am81.4%
- 11am–2pm90.7%
- 2–5pm75.4%
- 5–8pm76.2%
- 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 42 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 50.4% on time, against 92.1% 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. November was the busiest month here, with 192 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.5%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 66% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 66%Carrier
- 23%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 23% 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 3.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 34,356 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.86%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 120 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.1% on time across 1,619 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 1,620 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 92.1% on time and December 50.4%, a swing of 42 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,605 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to DTW questions
How often is GRR 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 20.4% of the 1,620 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is GRR to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
79.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GRR to DTW?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.4%, 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 GRR to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 50.4% on time, compared with 92.1% in September. Across the year that is 42 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 GRR — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on GRR to DTW94.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on GRR to DTW78.1%
- GRR to ORD, a related route69.1%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- GRR to ATL, a related route86.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record94.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.5%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. GRR to DTW and DTW to GRR 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.