Carrier route record
YXLGA→DTW
Republic Airways · New York to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,033
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on LGA to DTW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,033 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,980 at 81.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic 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
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 979 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.0%
Every carrier on LGA to DTW, 4,011 flights
These figures cover 1,033 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on LGA to DTW
Republic flew 1,033 of the 4,011 flights on LGA to DTW, about 26% of it. Its 74.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.1% to Republic at 74.9%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.1% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 75.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 998 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,980 | 81.1% | 85 min | 3.54% | B− |
| Spirit Airlines | 998 | 75.1% | 89 min | 7.41% | B− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,033 | 74.9% | 71 min | 5.23% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 7.4% 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
Republic flight numbers on LGA to DTW
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3 flights—
- 8am–11am323 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm64 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm334 flights73.5%
- 5pm–8pm88 flights74.4%
- 8pm–5am221 flights65.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.8% of the time, against 65.1% for the overnight window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 334 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on LGA to DTW through the year
December is the weak month at 63.6% on time, against 86.9% in May. 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 112 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.3%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 17,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 11%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 17,349 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 82.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.23%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 77.0% on time across 1,033 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,033 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on LGA to DTW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.23% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 979 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to DTW, every carrier
- Republic on DTW to LGA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to DTW81.1%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to DTW75.1%
- Republic Airways 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.