Route reliability record
SFO→DTW
San Francisco to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,791
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,079 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,791 SFO to DTW flights, of which United Airlines flew 406 at 85.5% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.6%, against 77.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,778 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.5% on time across 406 flights
These figures cover 1,791 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 85.5% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 75.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,385 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 406 | 85.5% | 50 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,385 | 75.4% | 53 min | 0.79% | B+ |
United leads Delta by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO 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 San Francisco to Detroit
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SFO → DTWSan Francisco to Detroit | United Airlines | 85.5% | 85.5% | 0.00% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 2. SFO → DTWSan Francisco to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 74.8% | 75.4% | 0.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 772 05:50 |
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 33 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights93.7%
- 8am–11am191 flights85.9%
- 11am–2pm474 flights78.5%
- 2pm–5pm304 flights60.5%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am455 flights71.9%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.7% of the time, against 60.5% for the afternoon window. That is 33 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 474 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 60.5%, a wide gap of 33.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.7%
- 8–11am85.9%
- 11am–2pm78.5%
- 2–5pm60.5%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am71.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
June is the worst month at 68.0% on time, 21 points below April, the best at 89.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 187 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.1%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 20,990 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 93.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, below the national 1.89% 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 actually costs
6.7% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,079 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.4% on time across 1,792 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,791 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.0% on time and June 68.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,778 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to DTW questions
How often is SFO to DTW delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.3% of the 1,791 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to DTW?
United Airlines leads at 85.5% on time across 406 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 75.4%, a gap of 10 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 SFO to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 60.5%, 33 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 June delays on SFO to DTW?
June is the weakest month at 68.0% on time, compared with 89.0% in April. Across the year that is 21 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to DTW85.5%
- Delta Air Lines on SFO to DTW75.4%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record85.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. SFO to DTW and DTW to SFO 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.