Detroit flight departure times improving

Almost 88% of flights out of DTW departed on time in December.

Zoom out: Nationwide, more than 83% of domestic flights departed on time last December, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj report from the latest Transportation Department data.

• That's a big upswing compared with December 2022, when Southwest Airlines' epic meltdown dragged the industrywide average down to about 70% for the month.

The bottom line: DTW's annual departure performance has been slightly better than the national average in each of the last five years.

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