Route profile
DFW→DTW
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Dallas–Fort Worth to Detroit, 986 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 27% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,244 flights. How this is calculated
DFW → DTW arrives on time 75.7% of the time; the return trip, DTW → DFW, arrives on time 75.3% of the time.
DFW → DTW spends 27.9 minutes on the ground on a 986-mile trip: 17.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DFW and 10.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at DTW.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why DFW → DTW flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DFW → DTW cancelled 176 of 11,244 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 64. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 69.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 92 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 176 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
122 cancellations, 69.3% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
50 cancellations, 28.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
4 cancellations, 2.3% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
176 coded cancellations were recorded on DFW → DTW; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
56 min late
against a median of 5 min early
DFW → DTW has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth are 61 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 11,244 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DTW after arriving from DFW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 40% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 24% | High risk |
| 60 min | 16% | High risk |
| 90 min | 9.2% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.9% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.57% of the time and diverts 0.21% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,044 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 56 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,244 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DFW → DTW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 88.7% of the time, against 62.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 25.8 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 92.0% on time from 1,202 flights
- 6 AM: 89.3% on time from 265 flights
- 7 AM: 86.2% on time from 940 flights
- 8 AM: 80.8% on time from 240 flights
- 9 AM: too few flights to score
- 10 AM: 77.8% on time from 613 flights
- 11 AM: 77.7% on time from 1,734 flights
- 12 PM: 76.5% on time from 193 flights
- 1 PM: 76.3% on time from 882 flights
- 2 PM: 69.7% on time from 597 flights
- 3 PM: 72.0% on time from 1,310 flights
- 4 PM: 64.5% on time from 343 flights
- 5 PM: 76.9% on time from 522 flights
- 6 PM: 64.6% on time from 1,073 flights
- 7 PM: 59.5% on time from 574 flights
- 8 PM: 63.0% on time from 498 flights
- 9 PM: 70.4% on time from 158 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DFW → DTW runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DFW → DTW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DFW → DTW, at 47.9%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 88.7% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 62.9%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 7.0 times the normal rate at DFW against 2.3 times at DTW. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DFW 10.4% against 1.5%, DTW 2.5% against 1.1%. Flights that did leave DFW in bad weather arrived on time 56.4% of the time, against 74.4% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | DFW | DTW |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 10.4% | 2.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.5% | 1.1% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 56.4% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 74.4% | 81.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 72,822 | 53,809 |
Delta Air Lines (4.2% cancelled against 10.4% for the other carriers at DFW), Frontier Airlines (5.9% cancelled against 10.5% for the other carriers at DFW) and Spirit Airlines (5.4% cancelled against 9.9% for the other carriers at DFW) cancelled fewer departures from DFW in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at DFW
All departures from DFW| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,949 | 4.2%below the others | 10.4% |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,192 | 5.9%below the others | 10.5% |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,826 | 5.4%below the others | 9.9% |
| American Airlines | 38,491 | 10.0%about level | 10.9% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DFW and DTW, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DFW on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: DFW (airlines), DTW, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 5,172 | 70.2% | 2.01% | -1 min | 11.2% |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,321 | 82.1% | 1.18% | -8 min | 7.6% |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,163 | 74.7% | 0.86% | -2 min | 8.6% |
| Frontier Airlines | 504 | 77.9% | 1.79% | -5 min | 8.7% |
American Airlines flew 46.3% of the 11,160 flights listed. American Airlines cancelled 2.01% of its flights here against 0.86% for Spirit Airlines.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 11.9 percentage points more often than American Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2183 Delta Air Lines | 5:30 AM | 1,065 | 92.1% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 7.9 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 75.1%
- Feb: 84.4%
- Mar: 76.4%
- Apr: 74.8%
- May: 67.0%
- Jun: 68.8%
- Jul: 68.6%
- Aug: 75.4%
- Sep: 80.4%
- Oct: 84.3%
- Nov: 79.5%
- Dec: 77.2%
May is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 17.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 68.9% from 304 flights
- August 2023: 75.8% from 310 flights
- September 2023: 77.0% from 281 flights
- October 2023: 82.8% from 322 flights
- November 2023: 84.4% from 289 flights
- December 2023: 86.1% from 246 flights
- January 2024: 72.3% from 249 flights
- February 2024: 87.1% from 249 flights
- March 2024: 75.7% from 274 flights
- April 2024: 70.8% from 271 flights
- May 2024: 56.1% from 318 flights
- June 2024: 65.4% from 310 flights
- July 2024: 67.9% from 317 flights
- August 2024: 76.0% from 317 flights
- September 2024: 79.2% from 289 flights
- October 2024: 85.9% from 354 flights
- November 2024: 78.5% from 337 flights
- December 2024: 76.4% from 344 flights
- January 2025: 80.9% from 334 flights
- February 2025: 83.9% from 301 flights
- March 2025: 78.4% from 368 flights
- April 2025: 75.4% from 358 flights
- May 2025: 67.6% from 346 flights
- June 2025: 74.1% from 332 flights
- July 2025: 69.3% from 334 flights
- August 2025: 74.4% from 314 flights
- September 2025: 84.9% from 289 flights
- October 2025: 84.1% from 310 flights
- November 2025: 75.9% from 300 flights
- December 2025: 70.8% from 304 flights
- January 2026: 70.2% from 261 flights
- February 2026: 82.1% from 224 flights
- March 2026: 74.4% from 281 flights
- April 2026: 77.9% from 300 flights
- May 2026: 77.5% from 301 flights
- June 2026: 66.3% from 288 flights
- July 2026: 68.2% from 318 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.4% against 77.1% in the 12 months before — declining by 1.7 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,244 DFW → DTW flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed