Route reliability record
TVC→DTW
Traverse City to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,062
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 207 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,062 TVC to DTW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 369 at 83.4% on time.
Best time to fly TVC to DTW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Sunday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.8% of the time and Sunday flights 80.9%, against 76.1% 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
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,037 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.4% on time across 369 flights
These figures cover 1,062 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TVC to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.4% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 72.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 693 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 369 | 83.4% | 76 min | 2.17% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 693 | 72.2% | 108 min | 2.31% | C |
Delta leads SkyWest by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on TVC 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 Traverse City 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. TVC → DTWTraverse City to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 81.6% | 83.4% | 2.17% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2292 06:00 |
| 2. TVC → DTWTraverse City to Detroit | SkyWest Airlines | 70.5% | 72.2% | 2.31% | 8am–11am, Sun | — |
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 20 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights83.2%
- 8am–11am90 flights87.8%
- 11am–2pm182 flights70.5%
- 2pm–5pm92 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm333 flights68.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 68.3% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TVC 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 TVC to DTW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.3%, a wide gap of 19.5 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am83.2%
- 8–11am87.8%
- 11am–2pm70.5%
- 2–5pm75.0%
- 5–8pm68.3%
- 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 49 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 45.1% on time, against 93.7% in September. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 122 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 24%Extreme weather
- 14%National Airspace System
- 0%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 24% 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 4.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 24,842 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.26% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 207 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 runs 74.1% on time across 1,062 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,062 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. 1,062 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 76.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,037 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TVC to DTW questions
How often is TVC to DTW delayed?
About 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 23.9% of the 1,062 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on TVC to DTW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.4% on time across 369 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 72.2%, a gap of 11 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 TVC to DTW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.3%, 20 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 TVC to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 45.1% on time, compared with 93.7% in September. Across the year that is 49 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 TVC — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on TVC to DTW83.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on TVC to DTW72.2%
- TVC to ORD, a related route71.3%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- ATL to DTW, a related route76.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. TVC to DTW and DTW to TVC 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.