Route reliability record
SYR→DTW
Syracuse to Detroit
- Flights
- 725
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 374 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 725 SYR to DTW flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly SYR to DTW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Thursday flights 87.3%, against 81.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 715 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.7% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 725 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 SYR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 85.7% | 51 min | 2.19% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 355 | 76.8% | 88 min | 0.28% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SYR 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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am98 flights88.8%
- 11am–2pm163 flights71.4%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm99 flights74.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 71.4% on time against 88.8% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SYR 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 SYR to DTW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.8% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 71.4%, a wide gap of 17.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am85.7%
- 8–11am88.8%
- 11am–2pm71.4%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm74.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 39 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.
December is the weak month at 61.0% on time, against 100.0% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 76.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 9,772 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 19%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 19% 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 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 9,772 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,762 of the 9,772 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 374 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.5% on time across 725 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. 725 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DTW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 725 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 81.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 715 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SYR to DTW questions
How often is SYR to DTW delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.6% of the 725 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is SYR to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
81.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SYR to DTW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 71.4%, 17 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 December delays on SYR to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 61.0% on time, compared with 100.0% in May. Across the year that is 39 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 SYR — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on SYR to DTW85.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on SYR to DTW76.8%
- SYR to ORD, a related route73.6%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- SYR to ATL, a related route83.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.8%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SYR to DTW and DTW to SYR 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.