Route reliability record
JFK→DTW
New York to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,215
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 509 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,215 JFK to DTW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 770 at 80.2% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to DTW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.0%, against 75.6% 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,158 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.2% on time across 770 flights
These figures cover 1,215 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 JFK to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 80.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 67.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 445 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 770 | 80.2% | 94 min | 3.77% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 445 | 67.4% | 64 min | 6.07% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 6.1% 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 JFK 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 New York 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. 4 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 30 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am10 flights—
- 8am–11am45 flights93.3%
- 11am–2pm247 flights87.9%
- 2pm–5pm307 flights79.9%
- 5pm–8pm235 flights71.0%
- 8pm–5am371 flights63.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 93.3% for the 8am–11am 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 371 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to DTW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 93.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.1%, a wide gap of 30.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am93.3%
- 11am–2pm87.9%
- 2–5pm79.9%
- 5–8pm71.0%
- 8pm–5am63.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
July is the worst month at 60.2% on time, 27 points below September, the best at 86.9%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 153 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 22,527 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.61%, 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
10.2% 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.
The 509 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 81.4% on time across 1,217 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,215 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 4.61% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,158 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to DTW questions
How often is JFK to DTW delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.4% of the 1,215 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to DTW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 80.2% on time across 770 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 67.4%, a gap of 13 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 JFK to DTW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.1%, 30 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 July delays on JFK to DTW?
July is the weakest month at 60.2% on time, compared with 86.9% in September. Across the year that is 27 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to DTW80.2%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to DTW67.4%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.2%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record67.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. JFK to DTW and DTW to JFK 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.