Carrier route record
OOSTL→DTW
SkyWest Airlines · St. Louis to Detroit
- Flights
- 186
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 10%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on STL to DTW sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 186 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,088 at 88.2% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on STL to DTW runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 59 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 184 completed flights
Avg delay
110 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.8%
Every carrier on STL to DTW, 1,905 flights
These figures cover 186 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.7% 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 STL to DTW
SkyWest flew 186 of the 1,905 flights on STL to DTW, about 10% of it. Its 71.7% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 88.2% to Republic at 0.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 593 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,088 | 88.2% | 102 min | 1.65% | A |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 36 | 83.3% | 206 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 593 | 73.6% | 62 min | 0.34% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 186 | 71.7% | 110 min | 1.08% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 37 min | 0.00% | F+ |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 19 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am16 flights—
- 8am–11am117 flights63.8%
- 11am–2pm47 flights83.0%
- 2pm–5pm2 flights—
- 5pm–8pm4 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 83.0% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 63.8%. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 117 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on STL to DTW through the year
- Jul–Sep 20257 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202525 flights—
- Jan–Mar 2026113 flights67.0%
- Apr–Jun 202641 flights87.8%
Scale runs 60% 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 71.7% on time across 186 flights.
Split by quarter, SkyWest on STL to DTW logged 7 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 25 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 113 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 41 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 71.7% annual figure is the one to use.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 74% of the 5,715 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.
- 74%Carrier
- 22%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 22% 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 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 5,715 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 74%, 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 4,224 of the 5,715 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 14.7% 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 440 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 61.3% on time across 186 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 186 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 STL to DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 186 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 71.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 184 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- STL to DTW, every carrier
- SkyWest on DTW to STL, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on STL to DTW88.2%
- Southwest Airlines on STL to DTW73.6%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.