Carrier route record

OOPIT→DTW

SkyWest Airlines · Pittsburgh to Detroit

Flights: 539
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 54%
Carriers: 3

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

SkyWest on PIT to DTW lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four 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 539 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on PIT to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 535 completed flights

Avg delay

112 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.74%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.3%

Every carrier on PIT to DTW, 1,007 flights

These figures cover 539 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% 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 PIT to DTW

SkyWest flew 539 of the 1,007 flights on PIT to DTW, most of the route. Its 77.6% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.7% to SkyWest at 77.6%. 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 PIT to DTW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Linesthin sample	125	83.7%	59 min	1.60%	B
Republic Airwaysthin sample	343	83.5%	74 min	1.17%	B
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	539	77.6%	112 min	0.74%	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 17 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–8am71 flights88.7%
8am–11am160 flights78.8%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm125 flights78.2%
5pm–8pm183 flights71.7%
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 71.7% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 183 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on PIT to DTW through the year

Jul–Sep 2025172 flights85.5%
Oct–Dec 202525 flights—
Jan–Mar 2026210 flights62.6%
Apr–Jun 2026132 flights90.9%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. 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 77.6% on time across 539 flights.

SkyWest on PIT to DTW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 90.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 62.6%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 180 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.2%. 22 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 51% 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.

Carrier
51%
Extreme weather
42%
National Airspace System
7%

Extreme weather accounts for 42% 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 6.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,463 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 6,828 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

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. 12.7% 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.

At 201 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.7% on time across 539 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 539 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 PIT to DTW

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 539 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 77.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 535 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