Route reliability record
LAS→DTW
Las Vegas to Detroit
- Flights
- 2,838
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,749 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,838 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,894 at 84.4% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,816 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
84.4% on time across 1,894 flights
These figures cover 2,838 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to DTW
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points 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 | 1,894 | 84.4% | 74 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 44 | 84.1% | 47 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 563 | 80.7% | 88 min | 1.24% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 337 | 68.0% | 44 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 84.4%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 20 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am369 flights94.0%
- 8am–11am485 flights89.8%
- 11am–2pm855 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm415 flights79.6%
- 5pm–8pm35 flights74.3%
- 8pm–5am679 flights78.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.0% of the time, against 74.3% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 855 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
June is the worst month at 75.0% on time, 15 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 88.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.6%. 11 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 42% 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.
- 42%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 36,292 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 15,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.60%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, 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 76.1% on time across 2,843 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,838 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.
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 June 75.0%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,816 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to DTW questions
How often is LAS to DTW delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.3% of the 2,838 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 84.4% on time across 1,894 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 80.7%, a gap of 4 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 LAS to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.3%, 20 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 June delays on LAS to DTW?
June is the weakest month at 75.0% on time, compared with 89.5% in October. Across the year that is 15 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-time record84.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record84.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record80.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.