Carrier route record
DLORF→DTW
Delta Air Lines · Norfolk to Detroit
- Flights
- 564
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 79%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on ORF to DTW lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 564 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on ORF 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
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 557 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.9%
Every carrier on ORF to DTW, 715 flights
These figures cover 564 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on ORF to DTW
Delta flew 564 of the 715 flights on ORF to DTW, most of the route. Its 81.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to SkyWest at 70.9%. 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 | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 564 | 81.0% | 94 min | 1.24% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 150 | 70.9% | 118 min | 1.33% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Delta 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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am282 flights88.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm122 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm160 flights71.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.7% of the time, against 71.2% for the evening 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 282 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on ORF to DTW through the year
December is the weak month at 55.6% on time, against 93.1% in October. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on ORF to DTW runs when it is late
Delta on ORF to DTW often beats the schedule: 180 of 557 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 106 late arrivals split 34 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 47 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early180 flights32.3%
- Within 15 min271 flights48.7%
- 15–29 min late34 flights6.1%
- 30–59 min late25 flights4.5%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late22 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 557 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 107 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on ORF to DTW
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 May 2026, 15 hours 52 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 May 2026 | 15 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 12 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 April 2026 | 8 hours 31 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 September 2025 | 7 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 May 2026 | 5 hours 10 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 9,910 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,304 of the 9,910 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,910 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 529 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.4% on time across 564 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 564 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 ORF to DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 564 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 81.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 557 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORF to DTW, every carrier
- Delta on DTW to ORF, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on ORF to DTW70.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- 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 7.05 million flight records
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.