Carrier route record

DLMEM→DTW

Delta Air Lines · Memphis to Detroit

Flights: 396
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 38%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on MEM to DTW earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 396 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's MEM to DTW record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 128 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

90.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 387 completed flights

Avg delay

123 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.27%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

83.7%

Every carrier on MEM to DTW, 1,049 flights

These figures cover 396 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 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

Delta against every carrier on MEM to DTW

Delta flew 396 of the 1,049 flights on MEM to DTW, about 38% of it. Its 90.4% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 83.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 92.9% to SkyWest at 78.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on MEM to DTW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	30	92.9%	33 min	6.67%	A−
Delta Air Lines (this page)	396	90.4%	123 min	2.27%	A
Republic Airwaysthin sample	42	81.0%	32 min	0.00%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	581	78.8%	108 min	1.38%	B

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 396 flights.

5am–8am308 flights91.7%
8am–11am65 flights87.5%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm23 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 91.7% on time for the 5am–8am window against 87.5% for 8am–11am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 308 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on MEM to DTW through the year

Jul–Sep 2025106 flights90.4%
Oct–Dec 202586 flights97.6%
Jan–Mar 202692 flights85.2%
Apr–Jun 2026112 flights89.1%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 90.4% on time across 396 flights.

Delta on MEM to DTW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 97.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 85.2%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 99 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 96.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 85.5%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 76% of the 4,541 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.

Carrier
76%
National Airspace System
14%
Late-arriving aircraft
8%
Extreme weather
3%

The largest share of delay minutes, 76%, 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 3,446 of the 4,541 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,541 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 2.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.2% 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 last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 610 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.6% on time across 398 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 396 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 Delta on MEM to DTW

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 396 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 90.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 387 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures