Route reliability record
GRR→DTW
Grand Rapids to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,588
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 120 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,588 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 92.3% of the time and Saturday flights 83.6%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,572 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.94%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
77.7% on time across 1,506 flights
These figures cover 1,588 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
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 | 65 | 90.8% | 39 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,506 | 77.7% | 108 min | 1.00% | B |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 17 | 76.5% | 98 min | 0.00% | B+ |
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 | 76.9% | 77.7% | 1.00% | 11am–2pm, Sat (route) | — |
| 2. LAN → DTWLansing to Detroit | SkyWest Airlines | 75.5% | 76.1% | 0.79% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 4060 05:35 |
| 3. AZO → DTWKalamazoo to Detroit | SkyWest Airlines | 75.5% | 76.8% | 1.71% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 3980 05:30 |
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am188 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am477 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm39 flights92.3%
- 2pm–5pm511 flights76.4%
- 5pm–8pm372 flights73.1%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 92.3% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 73.1%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 511 flights scheduled in it.
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 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.9%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 67%Carrier
- 22%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 22% 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 3.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 36,313 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 24,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.94% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 73.1% on time across 1,587 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 1,588 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. 1,572 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to DTW questions
How often is GRR to DTW delayed?
Roughly 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 21.8% of the 1,588 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
78.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point 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 92.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.1%, 19 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
- GRR to ORD, a related route68.3%
- ORD to DTW, a related route70.6%
- GRR to ATL, a related route86.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record90.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.7%
- 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 7.04 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.