Detroit (DTW) to Chicago (CHI): 234 miles (376 km) great-circle, about 1h 00m nonstop by our estimate. Cheapest fare observed: $203 round-trip on Frontier, with 1 stop, departing May 7, 2026.
$203 round-trip, Frontier F93409, departing 2026-05-07 at 13:59, returning 2026-05-09. The recorded itinerary left on a Thursday, returning on a Saturday 2 nights later; the fare was observed 12 days before departure. "Book this flight" opens Kiwi.com with the same airline and dates.
At $203, it ranked 12th of the 30 round-trip fares we recorded from DTW (median $275). That is 86.8 cents per great-circle mile (round-trip price over one-way distance), above the DTW median of 22.2 cents across 30 round-trip routes.
Routes from DTW of similar length: Washington (383 mi) at $380 and Baltimore (408 mi) at $148.
Frontier had the cheapest fare on 17 of 30 DTW routes. It is the 30th longest of the 30 routes we track from DTW.
Of 33 departure airports with a fare to Chicago, Detroit (DTW) ranked 19th at $203. Lowest: $89 from Atlanta (ATL); highest: $1241 from Nairobi (NBO); 16 nonstop. Cheapest-fare airlines (routes): Frontier (15), Spirit (5), United Airlines (4), American Airlines (2), airline 0O (1) and Alaska Airlines (1), plus 5 more.
Travelpayouts fares (cheapest per route, observed April 25, 2026); OurAirports coordinates and elevations; IANA zones America/New_York, America/Chicago; flight time is our estimate.