Raleigh, NC · departure reliability
RDU
Raleigh-Durham International
- Departures
- 55,581
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Carriers
- 11
- US rank
- #36 by volume
Raleigh
Raleigh-Durham International lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 55,581 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 12,031 at 85.1% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the eleven carriers covered here at 85.1% on time across 12,031 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.0%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
85.1% on time here
These figures cover 56,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of RDU
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 85.1% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 64.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 578 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 12,031 | 85.1% | 80 min | 1.63% | A |
| American Airlines | 9,574 | 79.7% | 96 min | 2.06% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 9,026 | 80.4% | 54 min | 1.38% | B |
| Republic Airways | 7,682 | 74.3% | 75 min | 4.13% | C− |
| United Airlines | 6,263 | 81.1% | 87 min | 1.23% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,205 | 73.1% | 93 min | 2.59% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,908 | 76.9% | 78 min | 2.89% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 1,528 | 65.4% | 77 min | 5.24% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 1,090 | 70.9% | 75 min | 3.30% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 625 | 72.6% | 46 min | 1.60% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 578 | 64.6% | 81 min | 6.23% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Busiest routes out of RDU
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from RDU, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 79.0%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RDU to ATL · Atlanta | 4,618 | 87.6% | 87 min | 1.52% | A |
| RDU to ORD · Chicago | 3,589 | 74.4% | 93 min | 2.42% | C |
| RDU to CLT · Charlotte | 3,070 | 82.4% | 86 min | 1.66% | B |
| RDU to BOS · Boston | 2,815 | 78.8% | 82 min | 2.59% | B |
| RDU to LGA · New York | 2,713 | 69.5% | 85 min | 6.08% | C− |
| RDU to MCO · Orlando | 2,702 | 78.3% | 77 min | 1.85% | B |
| RDU to PHL · Philadelphia | 2,562 | 73.5% | 94 min | 3.51% | C− |
| RDU to JFK · New York | 2,362 | 75.6% | 73 min | 4.36% | B− |
| RDU to MIA · Miami | 2,350 | 76.8% | 95 min | 1.83% | B |
| RDU to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,278 | 77.6% | 85 min | 2.94% | B |
| RDU to BNA · Nashville | 2,213 | 80.3% | 60 min | 1.54% | B |
| RDU to DCA · Washington | 1,989 | 63.3% | 77 min | 5.08% | D− |
| RDU to EWR · Newark | 1,975 | 74.9% | 94 min | 3.29% | C− |
| RDU to BWI · Baltimore | 1,800 | 85.8% | 66 min | 2.33% | A |
| RDU to DEN · Denver | 1,771 | 80.0% | 68 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| RDU to DTW · Detroit | 1,525 | 87.7% | 80 min | 1.11% | A |
| RDU to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,318 | 78.0% | 72 min | 2.20% | B |
| RDU to IAD · Washington | 1,293 | 86.5% | 79 min | 1.24% | A |
| RDU to TPA · Tampa | 1,280 | 80.7% | 70 min | 1.95% | B |
| RDU to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,230 | 84.1% | 73 min | 1.30% | B |
| RDU to MDW · Chicago | 988 | 79.3% | 54 min | 2.02% | B |
| RDU to SEA · Seattle | 919 | 75.9% | 47 min | 1.52% | B |
| RDU to IAH · Houston | 906 | 83.5% | 83 min | 1.21% | B |
| RDU to SFO · San Francisco | 895 | 80.5% | 69 min | 0.22% | B+ |
| RDU to PHX · Phoenix | 811 | 84.0% | 61 min | 0.99% | B+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave RDU
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am13,505 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am8,896 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm9,895 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm8,364 flights72.4%
- 5pm–8pm11,954 flights67.1%
- 8pm–5am2,967 flights64.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 90.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 13,505 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When RDU runs late
RDU's year swings by 13 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 71.6% on time, 13 points below September, the best at 84.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 4,929 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.7%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why RDU gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 898,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 898,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 897,803 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.28% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
55,581 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Flying out of RDU
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.6% on time and July 71.6%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 54,199 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU delay questions
How often is Raleigh (RDU) delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 55,581 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Raleigh (RDU)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 85.1% on time across 12,031 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 64.6%, a gap of 21 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Raleigh (RDU)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.1%, 26 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on Raleigh (RDU)?
July is the weakest month at 71.6% on time, compared with 84.6% in September. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to ATL — Atlanta87.6%
- RDU to ORD — Chicago74.4%
- RDU to CLT — Charlotte82.4%
- RDU to BOS — Boston78.8%
- RDU to LGA — New York69.5%
- RDU to MCO — Orlando78.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.1%
- American Airlines on-time record79.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.