Carrier route record
AAMIA→DTW
American Airlines · Miami to Detroit
- Flights
- 394
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MIA to DTW sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 394 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on MIA to DTW runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 93 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 388 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.9%
Every carrier on MIA to DTW, 1,813 flights
These figures cover 394 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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
American against every carrier on MIA to DTW
American flew 394 of the 1,813 flights on MIA to DTW, about 22% of it. Its 68.3% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 82.8% to Republic at 60.0%. Four 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 87 | 82.8% | 46 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 966 | 77.7% | 88 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 394 | 68.3% | 66 min | 1.27% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 64 | 67.7% | 88 min | 3.12% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 292 | 61.7% | 71 min | 3.42% | D− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 10 | 60.0% | 162 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 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–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am25 flights—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm45 flights77.8%
- 8pm–5am320 flights64.8%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 77.8% for the 5pm–8pm 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 320 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on MIA to DTW through the year
July is the worst month at 50.0% on time, 40 points below September, the best at 90.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 49 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 74.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 60.0%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 42% of the 8,136 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.
- 42%Carrier
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
42% 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 8,136 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 8,136 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 3,451 of the 8,136 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.8% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,145 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 89.4% on time across 394 flights, 21 points above 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 21 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 394 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 American on MIA to DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 394 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 68.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 388 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MIA to DTW, every carrier
- American on DTW to MIA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on MIA to DTW77.7%
- Spirit Airlines on MIA to DTW61.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.