Carrier route record
OOMEM→DTW
SkyWest Airlines · Memphis to Detroit
- Flights
- 581
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 55%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on MEM to DTW lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 581 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on MEM 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
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 572 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
83.7%
Every carrier on MEM to DTW, 1,049 flights
These figures cover 581 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on MEM to DTW
SkyWest flew 581 of the 1,049 flights on MEM to DTW, most of the route. Its 78.8% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 83.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 92.9% | 33 min | 6.67% | A− |
| Delta Air Lines | 396 | 90.4% | 123 min | 2.27% | A |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 42 | 81.0% | 32 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 581 | 78.8% | 108 min | 1.38% | B |
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am56 flights98.2%
- 8am–11am222 flights79.6%
- 11am–2pm51 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm83 flights87.8%
- 5pm–8pm169 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 98.2% of the time, against 69.6% for the evening window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 222 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on MEM to DTW through the year
January is the weak month at 54.8% on time, against 91.7% in November. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 105 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 61% of the 13,000 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.
- 61%Carrier
- 34%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 34% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 5.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,108 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, 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 7,966 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
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. 12.2% 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 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 runs 76.8% on time across 580 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. 581 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 SkyWest on MEM to DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 581 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 78.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 572 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MEM to DTW, every carrier
- SkyWest on DTW to MEM, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on MEM to DTW90.4%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.