Route profile
EWR→DTW
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Newark to Detroit, 488 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 15% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,380 flights. How this is calculated
EWR → DTW arrives on time 79.7% of the time; the return trip, DTW → EWR, arrives on time 78.5% of the time.
EWR → DTW spends 31.4 minutes on the ground on a 488-mile trip: 22.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at EWR and 8.9 minutes from touchdown to gate at DTW.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why EWR → DTW flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
EWR → DTW cancelled 381 of 10,380 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 27. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 54.6% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 50 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 381 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.
208 cancellations, 54.6% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
112 cancellations, 29.4% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
61 cancellations, 16.0% 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.
381 coded cancellations were recorded on EWR → DTW; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
54 min late
against a median of 11 min early
EWR → DTW has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 11 min early, but the worst tenth are 65 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 10,380 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DTW after arriving from EWR.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 31% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 20% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 9.0% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.1% | 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 3.67% of the time and diverts 0.08% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,991 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 54 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,380 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
EWR → DTW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 88.8% of the time, against 65.6% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 23.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 88.6% on time from 1,344 flights
- 7 AM: 92.7% on time from 266 flights
- 8 AM: 87.7% on time from 425 flights
- 9 AM: 86.2% on time from 1,270 flights
- 10 AM: 85.0% on time from 137 flights
- 11 AM: 92.0% on time from 297 flights
- 12 PM: 72.6% on time from 276 flights
- 1 PM: 84.1% on time from 1,397 flights
- 2 PM: 79.4% on time from 338 flights
- 3 PM: 87.0% on time from 364 flights
- 4 PM: 74.3% on time from 1,000 flights
- 5 PM: 73.5% on time from 960 flights
- 6 PM: 74.8% on time from 410 flights
- 7 PM: 75.7% on time from 233 flights
- 8 PM: 60.3% on time from 671 flights
- 9 PM: 69.5% on time from 686 flights
- 10 PM: 53.9% on time from 224 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why EWR → 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 EWR → DTW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on EWR → DTW, at 40.2%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 88.8% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 65.6%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of EWR to DTW: 3.3 times the normal rate at EWR and 2.3 times at DTW. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: EWR 6.9% against 2.1%, DTW 2.5% against 1.1%. Flights that did leave DTW in bad weather arrived on time 66.5% of the time, against 81.6% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | EWR | DTW |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 6.9% | 2.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 2.1% | 1.1% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 65.8% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.0% | 81.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 51,613 | 53,809 |
Of the carriers on this route, United Airlines (5.3% cancelled against 8.9% for the other carriers at EWR) cancelled the fewest departures from EWR in bad weather and Republic Airways (11.8% cancelled against 6.1% for the other carriers at EWR) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at EWR
All departures from EWR| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 28,226 | 5.3%below the others | 8.9% |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,694 | 5.4%below the others | 7.0% |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,882 | 8.7%above the others | 6.4% |
| Republic Airways | 9,298 | 11.8%above the others | 6.1% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from EWR and DTW, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from EWR on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: EWR (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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 4,878 | 78.3% | 2.13% | -10 min | 10.9% |
| Republic Airways | 3,604 | 84.5% | 5.49% | -13 min | 5.9% |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,071 | 69.0% | 5.79% | -5 min | 14.2% |
| United Airlines | 820 | 81.2% | 2.07% | -11 min | 6.0% |
Delta Air Lines flew 47.0% of the 10,373 flights listed. Spirit Airlines cancelled 5.79% of its flights here against 2.07% for United Airlines.
Republic Airways arrived on time 15.5 percentage points more often than Spirit Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly New York to Detroit
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LGA→DTW New York to Detroit | 12,495 | 80.9% | 3.07% | -11 min | 56 |
| EWR→DTW this route Newark to Detroit | 10,380 | 79.7% | 3.67% | -11 min | 50 |
LGA → DTW is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 80.9% on time, against 79.7% for EWR → DTW.
Flying to DTW from the New York area? Compare EWR, LGA, JFK for DTW, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 5.1 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 79.1%
- Feb: 86.1%
- Mar: 85.7%
- Apr: 81.9%
- May: 80.2%
- Jun: 74.5%
- Jul: 69.1%
- Aug: 79.2%
- Sep: 83.7%
- Oct: 82.4%
- Nov: 82.6%
- Dec: 74.9%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 17.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 63.9% from 271 flights
- August 2023: 83.5% from 274 flights
- September 2023: 81.5% from 336 flights
- October 2023: 92.7% from 317 flights
- November 2023: 91.4% from 269 flights
- December 2023: 89.7% from 232 flights
- January 2024: 78.4% from 244 flights
- February 2024: 90.5% from 246 flights
- March 2024: 90.5% from 264 flights
- April 2024: 79.1% from 257 flights
- May 2024: 82.4% from 291 flights
- June 2024: 72.4% from 306 flights
- July 2024: 62.8% from 291 flights
- August 2024: 74.5% from 308 flights
- September 2024: 85.1% from 324 flights
- October 2024: 82.3% from 317 flights
- November 2024: 79.7% from 256 flights
- December 2024: 71.7% from 224 flights
- January 2025: 79.2% from 201 flights
- February 2025: 77.6% from 202 flights
- March 2025: 87.7% from 228 flights
- April 2025: 78.8% from 205 flights
- May 2025: 62.4% from 190 flights
- June 2025: 72.4% from 249 flights
- July 2025: 70.8% from 355 flights
- August 2025: 79.7% from 355 flights
- September 2025: 84.5% from 359 flights
- October 2025: 72.9% from 347 flights
- November 2025: 77.2% from 335 flights
- December 2025: 65.4% from 307 flights
- January 2026: 79.6% from 297 flights
- February 2026: 88.6% from 285 flights
- March 2026: 80.1% from 323 flights
- April 2026: 86.6% from 278 flights
- May 2026: 90.5% from 261 flights
- June 2026: 78.6% from 280 flights
- July 2026: 78.5% from 296 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.9% against 77.1% in the 12 months before — improving by 2.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,380 EWR → 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