Carrier route record
DLLGA→DTW
Delta Air Lines · New York to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,982
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 51%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LGA to DTW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 1,982 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,052 at 74.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on LGA to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,899 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.3%
Every carrier on LGA to DTW, 3,861 flights
These figures cover 1,982 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on LGA to DTW
Delta flew 1,982 of the 3,861 flights on LGA to DTW, most of the route. Its 81.0% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.0% to Spirit at 72.1%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 (this page) | 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
Delta flight numbers on LGA to DTW
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights95.6%
- 8am–11am365 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm365 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm233 flights75.3%
- 5pm–8pm355 flights73.8%
- 8pm–5am299 flights69.3%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.6% of the time, against 69.3% for the overnight window. That is 26 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LGA to DTW through the year
December is the weak month at 65.5% on time, against 93.5% in February. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on LGA to DTW runs when it is late
Delta on LGA to DTW often beats the schedule: 789 of 1,899 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 360 late arrivals split 103 under half an hour, 101 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 156 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early789 flights41.5%
- Within 15 min750 flights39.5%
- 15–29 min late103 flights5.4%
- 30–59 min late101 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late82 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late74 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,899 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
101 of 380 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. 81 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on LGA to DTW
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 July 2026, 15 hours 42 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Four of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 July 2026 | 15 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 July 2026 | 15 hours 42 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 August 2026 | 13 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 July 2026 | 9 hours 23 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 28 July 2026 | 8 hours 21 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 10,000 minutes out of 31,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 31,180 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 95.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.09%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 costs
8.2% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.4% on time across 1,981 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,982 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 Delta on LGA to DTW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.09% 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. 1,899 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to DTW, every carrier
- Delta on DTW to LGA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on LGA to DTW74.1%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to DTW72.1%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.