Route reliability record
LAS→DTW
Las Vegas to Detroit
- Flights
- 2,765
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,749 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 3 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,765 LAS to DTW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,877 at 83.8% on time.
Best time to fly LAS to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.6%, against 80.6% 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
80.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,738 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.8% on time across 1,877 flights
These figures cover 2,765 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to DTW
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,877 | 83.8% | 74 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 437 | 82.8% | 104 min | 1.60% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 102 | 67.0% | 65 min | 1.96% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 349 | 64.8% | 41 min | 0.00% | D+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 83.8%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAS 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 Las Vegas to Detroit
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAS → DTWLas Vegas to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 83.3% | 83.8% | 0.64% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 864 06:00 |
| 2. LAS → DTWLas Vegas to Detroit | Spirit Airlines | 81.5% | 82.8% | 1.60% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 18 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am463 flights90.4%
- 11am–2pm865 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm405 flights77.9%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am667 flights76.8%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 74.6% on time against 92.3% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 865 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAS 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 LAS to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.3% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 74.6%, a wide gap of 17.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.3%
- 8–11am90.4%
- 11am–2pm74.6%
- 2–5pm77.9%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am76.8%
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 22 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 67.3% on time, 22 points below October, the best at 89.5%. 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 308 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 37,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 37,151 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.76%, 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
6.2% 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.
At 1,749 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.6% on time across 2,768 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,765 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. October runs 89.5% on time and July 67.3%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,738 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to DTW questions
How often is LAS 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 19.4% of the 2,765 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 LAS to DTW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.8% on time across 1,877 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 82.8%, a gap of about a point. 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 LAS to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 74.6%, 18 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 LAS to DTW?
July is the weakest month at 67.3% on time, compared with 89.5% in October. Across the year that is 22 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 LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LAS to DTW83.8%
- Spirit Airlines on LAS to DTW82.8%
- Frontier Airlines on LAS to DTW67.0%
- Southwest Airlines on LAS to DTW64.8%
- LAS to LAX, a related route77.9%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- LAS to DEN, a related route76.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record82.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LAS to DTW and DTW to LAS 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.