Route reliability record
LGA→DTW
New York to Detroit
- Flights
- 3,861
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 502 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% 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 3,861 LGA to DTW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,982 at 81.0% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.0%, against 77.3% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.0% on time across 1,982 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,657 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.0% on time across 1,982 flights
These figures cover 3,861 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 LGA to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.0% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 72.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 827 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,982 | 81.0% | 87 min | 4.09% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,052 | 74.1% | 74 min | 5.13% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 827 | 72.1% | 88 min | 8.10% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 8.1% 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 LGA 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. 3 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 29 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am561 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am835 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm505 flights79.7%
- 2pm–5pm744 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm609 flights69.4%
- 8pm–5am607 flights64.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.9% on time, against 94.2% for the 5am–8am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 835 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA 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 LGA to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.9%, a wide gap of 29.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.2%
- 8–11am84.7%
- 11am–2pm79.7%
- 2–5pm71.3%
- 5–8pm69.4%
- 8pm–5am64.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 64.2% on time, against 88.7% in September. 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 386 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 69,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 69,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 68,939 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 94.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.23%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
10.4% 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 502 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 runs 74.7% on time across 3,862 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,861 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 5.23% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,657 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to DTW questions
How often is LGA to DTW delayed?
Roughly 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 22.7% of the 3,861 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to DTW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.0% on time across 1,982 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 72.1%, a gap of 9 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 LGA to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.9%, 29 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 LGA to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 64.2% on time, compared with 88.7% in September. Across the year that is 25 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to DTW81.0%
- Republic Airways on LGA to DTW74.1%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to DTW72.1%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to DTW and DTW to LGA 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.