Route reliability record
ORD→DTW
Chicago to Detroit
- Flights
- 6,013
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 235 mi
- Carriers
- 7
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 6,013 ORD to DTW flights, of which Republic Airways flew 454 at 79.2% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.7% of the time and Saturday flights 75.1%, against 71.1% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 79.2% on time across 454 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,818 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
79.2% on time across 454 flights
These figures cover 6,013 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.2% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 64.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,563 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 454 | 79.2% | 77 min | 4.63% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 946 | 78.2% | 52 min | 3.38% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,156 | 77.3% | 96 min | 3.20% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 47 | 70.7% | 135 min | 12.77% | C− |
| United Airlines | 827 | 70.0% | 80 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,563 | 64.6% | 92 min | 3.47% | D− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 60.0% | 68 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Republic Airways cancels 4.6% 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
Flights on ORD to DTW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Detroit
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → DTWChicago to Detroit | Envoy Air | 75.6% | 78.2% | 3.38% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → DTWChicago to Detroit | Republic Airways | 75.5% | 79.2% | 4.63% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 3. ORD → DTWChicago to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 74.8% | 77.3% | 3.20% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2039 07:10 |
| 4. MDW → DTWChicago to Detroit | Southwest Airlines | 72.6% | 73.9% | 1.82% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 5. ORD → DTWChicago to Detroit | United Airlines | 69.3% | 70.0% | 0.97% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am931 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am995 flights74.3%
- 11am–2pm651 flights77.0%
- 2pm–5pm1,114 flights69.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,561 flights60.8%
- 8pm–5am761 flights64.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.8% on time, against 87.7% for the 5am–8am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,561 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to DTW by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ORD to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.8%, a wide gap of 26.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.7%
- 8–11am74.3%
- 11am–2pm77.0%
- 2–5pm69.0%
- 5–8pm60.8%
- 8pm–5am64.6%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 53.8% on time, against 79.4% in September. 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 599 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.5%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 144,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 15%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 15% 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 2.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 143,684 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 52,000 of the 144,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.21%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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 actually costs
13.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 235 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 72.2% on time across 6,014 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,013 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DTW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.21% 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. 5,818 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to DTW questions
How often is ORD to DTW delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.9% of the 6,013 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to DTW?
Republic Airways leads at 79.2% on time across 454 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 64.6%, a gap of 15 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.8%, 27 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on ORD to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 53.8% on time, compared with 79.4% in September. Across the year that is 26 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to DTW79.2%
- Envoy Air on ORD to DTW78.2%
- Delta Air Lines on ORD to DTW77.3%
- United Airlines on ORD to DTW70.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to DTW64.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to DTW, a related route76.4%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to DTW and DTW to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.