Route reliability record
LAX→DTW
Los Angeles to Detroit
- Flights
- 2,364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,979 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,364 LAX to DTW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,955 at 83.2% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.1%, against 82.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 49 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,328 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.2% on time across 1,955 flights
These figures cover 2,364 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 LAX to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.2% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 77.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 407 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,955 | 83.2% | 66 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 407 | 77.0% | 81 min | 2.70% | B |
Delta leads Spirit by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX 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 Los Angeles 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. LAX → DTWLos Angeles to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 82.4% | 83.2% | 0.92% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 494 09:45 |
| 2. LAX → DTWLos Angeles to Detroit | Spirit Airlines | 74.9% | 77.0% | 2.70% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 16 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am532 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am366 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm468 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm372 flights81.8%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am625 flights77.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. 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 74.0% on time against 90.1% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 625 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX 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 LAX to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 74.0%, a wide gap of 16.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.1%
- 8–11am89.0%
- 11am–2pm74.0%
- 2–5pm81.8%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am77.8%
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 17 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 74.2% on time, against 91.5% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 79.1%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 28,807 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.23% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% 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 1,979 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 75.8% on time across 2,361 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 2,364 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 91.5% on time and December 74.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,328 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to DTW questions
How often is LAX to DTW delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.8% of the 2,364 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 LAX to DTW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.2% on time across 1,955 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 77.0%, a gap of 6 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 LAX to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 74.0%, 16 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 LAX to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 74.2% on time, compared with 91.5% in October. Across the year that is 17 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to DTW83.2%
- Spirit Airlines on LAX to DTW77.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record77.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. LAX to DTW and DTW to LAX 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.