Route reliability record
LAN→DTW
Lansing to Detroit
- Flights
- 833
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 74 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 2.2 hours behind schedule. That rests on 833 LAN to DTW flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAN to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 80.5% of the time and Saturday flights 77.7%, against 74.7% 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
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 825 completed flights
Avg delay
134 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.84%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
74.7% on time across 833 flights
These figures cover 833 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% 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 LAN 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 833 | 74.7% | 134 min | 0.84% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on LAN 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 Lansing 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. 1 of the top 2 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. 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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am311 flights80.5%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm197 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm304 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 80.5% of the time, against 68.2% for the evening window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 311 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAN 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 LAN to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 80.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.2%, a wide gap of 12.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am80.5%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm76.5%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm68.2%
- 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 41 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 50.0% on time, against 90.9% in October. 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 89 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.8%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 75% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 75%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 18% 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 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 27,957 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 75%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 21,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, 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
14.3% 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 74 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 runs 73.6% on time across 833 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 833 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DTW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 833 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 74.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 825 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAN to DTW questions
How often is LAN 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 25.3% of the 833 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.2 hours on average.
How reliable is LAN to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
74.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAN to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 80.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.2%, 12 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 LAN to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 50.0% on time, compared with 90.9% in October. Across the year that is 41 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 LAN — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- LAN to ORD, a related route80.8%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- ATL to DTW, a related route76.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record74.7%
- 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. LAN to DTW and DTW to LAN 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.