Route reliability record
SLC→DTW
Salt Lake City to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,530
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,481 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,530 SLC to DTW flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly SLC to DTW: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 91.3%, against 88.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 109 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,527 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
88.2% on time across 1,528 flights
These figures cover 1,530 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 SLC to DTW
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 | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,528 | 88.2% | 60 min | 0.13% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SLC 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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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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights93.7%
- 8am–11am364 flights93.4%
- 11am–2pm57 flights96.4%
- 2pm–5pm341 flights87.7%
- 5pm–8pm353 flights78.7%
- 8pm–5am50 flights72.0%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 96.4% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 72.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SLC 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 SLC to DTW, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 96.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.0%, a wide gap of 24.4 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am93.7%
- 8–11am93.4%
- 11am–2pm96.4%
- 2–5pm87.7%
- 5–8pm78.7%
- 8pm–5am72.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
July is the worst month at 74.8% on time, 20 points below October, the best at 94.4%. 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 151 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 86.3%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 62% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 62%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,657 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,746 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.13%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 1,481 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 79.6% on time across 1,535 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,530 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. October runs 94.4% on time and July 74.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,527 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SLC to DTW questions
How often is SLC to DTW delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.8% of the 1,530 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is SLC to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
88.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SLC to DTW?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 96.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.0%, 24 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 July delays on SLC to DTW?
July is the weakest month at 74.8% on time, compared with 94.4% in October. Across the year that is 20 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 SLC — the return legseparate record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- SLC to PHX, a related route83.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.2%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SLC to DTW and DTW to SLC 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.