OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Detroit to Seattle

1,927 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on DTW–SEA arrive on time 79% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate79%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay35 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled0.6%of scheduled flights

based on 1,980 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

Too close to call — no single carrier is clearly more on-time here.

  • Delta Air Lines
    On-time80%
    Medianon time
    p9030 min
    Cancel0.7%
    Flights1,508
  • Alaska Airlines
    On-time76%
    Medianon time
    p9035 min
    Cancel0.2%
    Flights472

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline39%
  • Weather3%
  • Air traffic (NAS)23%
  • Late aircraft35%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Airline.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly DTW → SEA

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-01 .. 2025-12).

Best time of day

On-time rates are fairly even by time of day on this route — ranging from 73% to 87% on time.

  • Mornings87% on time · p90 15 min · 1,837 flights
  • Middays87% on time · p90 20 min · 1,096 flights
  • Afternoons82% on time · p90 25 min · 1,483 flights
  • Evenings77% on time · p90 35 min · 984 flights
  • Overnights73% on time · p90 45 min · 755 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 79% to 86% on time.

  • Tuesdays86% on time · p90 20 min · 822 flights
  • Saturdays85% on time · p90 25 min · 796 flights
  • Wednesdays83% on time · p90 25 min · 847 flights
  • Sundays82% on time · p90 30 min · 928 flights
  • Mondays82% on time · p90 30 min · 929 flights
  • Thursdays81% on time · p90 30 min · 909 flights
  • Fridays79% on time · p90 35 min · 924 flights
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Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.