Carrier route record
DLSFO→DTW
Delta Air Lines · San Francisco to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,385
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 77%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on SFO to DTW sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,385 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on SFO 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,372 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.7%
Every carrier on SFO to DTW, 1,791 flights
These figures cover 1,385 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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
Delta against every carrier on SFO to DTW
Delta flew 1,385 of the 1,791 flights on SFO to DTW, most of the route. Its 75.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.5% to Delta at 75.4%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 406 | 85.5% | 50 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,385 | 75.4% | 53 min | 0.79% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on SFO to DTW
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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 36 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights93.7%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm363 flights76.0%
- 2pm–5pm264 flights57.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am391 flights69.6%
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 57.5% for the afternoon window. That is 36 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 391 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on SFO to DTW through the year
June is the worst month at 58.9% on time, 30 points below March, the best at 89.2%. 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 138 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.5%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on SFO to DTW runs when it is late
The 338 late arrivals split 123 under half an hour, 114 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 101 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early327 flights23.8%
- Within 15 min707 flights51.5%
- 15–29 min late123 flights9.0%
- 30–59 min late114 flights8.3%
- 1–2 hours late82 flights6.0%
- 2+ hours late19 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,372 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
58 of 332 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 64 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on SFO to DTW
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 August 2026, 9 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 August 2026 | 9 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 December 2025 | 8 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 September 2025 | 4 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 September 2025 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 February 2026 | 3 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 18,000 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 18,034 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 0.79%, 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 costs
7.4% 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 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 65.1% on time across 1,385 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,385 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on SFO to DTW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 89.2% on time and June 58.9%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,372 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to DTW, every carrier
- Delta on DTW to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to DTW85.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) 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 7.05 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.