Raleigh, NC · departure reliability
RDU
Raleigh-Durham International
- Departures
- 55,470
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 11
- US rank
- #36 by volume
Raleigh
Raleigh-Durham International lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 55,470 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 11,943 at 84.7% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the eleven carriers covered here at 84.7% on time across 11,943 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
84.7% on time here
These figures cover 55,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of RDU
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 63.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,695 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 11,943 | 84.7% | 80 min | 1.72% | B |
| American Airlines | 9,463 | 80.6% | 97 min | 1.89% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 8,886 | 79.8% | 52 min | 1.29% | B |
| Republic Airways | 7,491 | 74.4% | 76 min | 4.34% | C− |
| United Airlines | 6,220 | 81.3% | 93 min | 1.29% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,324 | 73.4% | 93 min | 2.52% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 3,064 | 75.5% | 80 min | 4.14% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 1,695 | 63.9% | 95 min | 6.90% | D− |
| Envoy Air | 1,135 | 71.3% | 77 min | 3.00% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 686 | 75.8% | 51 min | 1.02% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 405 | 64.2% | 75 min | 7.65% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 7.7% 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 78.9%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RDU to ATL · Atlanta | 4,643 | 86.5% | 86 min | 1.59% | A |
| RDU to ORD · Chicago | 3,740 | 74.3% | 100 min | 2.81% | C |
| RDU to CLT · Charlotte | 3,030 | 81.9% | 85 min | 1.55% | B |
| RDU to BOS · Boston | 2,847 | 78.5% | 83 min | 2.95% | B |
| RDU to MCO · Orlando | 2,695 | 78.0% | 80 min | 1.78% | B |
| RDU to PHL · Philadelphia | 2,668 | 75.3% | 94 min | 4.16% | B− |
| RDU to LGA · New York | 2,489 | 69.7% | 80 min | 6.19% | C− |
| RDU to MIA · Miami | 2,367 | 77.8% | 95 min | 1.73% | B |
| RDU to JFK · New York | 2,334 | 74.6% | 77 min | 5.57% | C− |
| RDU to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,263 | 79.7% | 89 min | 2.39% | B |
| RDU to BNA · Nashville | 2,224 | 79.9% | 59 min | 1.39% | B |
| RDU to DCA · Washington | 2,015 | 62.0% | 83 min | 5.86% | D− |
| RDU to EWR · Newark | 1,993 | 76.5% | 107 min | 3.21% | B− |
| RDU to BWI · Baltimore | 1,763 | 85.8% | 56 min | 2.21% | A |
| RDU to DEN · Denver | 1,734 | 81.9% | 68 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| RDU to DTW · Detroit | 1,480 | 88.6% | 82 min | 1.49% | A |
| RDU to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,402 | 77.2% | 73 min | 2.28% | B |
| RDU to TPA · Tampa | 1,294 | 82.2% | 66 min | 2.09% | B |
| RDU to IAD · Washington | 1,275 | 86.8% | 74 min | 1.33% | A |
| RDU to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,231 | 83.4% | 86 min | 1.30% | B |
| RDU to MDW · Chicago | 960 | 77.3% | 54 min | 1.77% | B |
| RDU to IAH · Houston | 943 | 85.9% | 86 min | 1.17% | A |
| RDU to SEA · Seattle | 918 | 78.0% | 51 min | 1.20% | B |
| RDU to SFO · San Francisco | 884 | 78.1% | 67 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| RDU to PHX · Phoenix | 832 | 80.8% | 57 min | 0.96% | 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.
- 5am–8am13,502 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am8,971 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm9,958 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm8,104 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm11,893 flights67.2%
- 8pm–5am3,042 flights63.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.9% 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 13,502 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RDU departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Raleigh (RDU), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.9%, a wide gap of 26.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am87.1%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm67.2%
- 8pm–5am63.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
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 71.9% 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.1%, a spread of 7 points.
RDU month by month
From Europe
Transatlantic routes into RDU
5 European airports send scheduled passenger flights to RDU, 2,409 flights a year in both directions by the DOT's international count. The DOT keeps no delay record for international flights; the UK routes carry the CAA's departure punctuality, and every route sets its departure airport's EUROCONTROL figures beside RDU's own record above.
Delay causes
Why RDU gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 916,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 916,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 916,375 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 2.41% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
55,470 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 71.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 54,022 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU delay questions
How often is Raleigh (RDU) delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.1% of the 55,470 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 84.7% on time across 11,943 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 63.9%, 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 63.9%, 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 71.9% 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 — Atlanta86.5%
- RDU to ORD — Chicago74.3%
- RDU to CLT — Charlotte81.9%
- RDU to BOS — Boston78.5%
- RDU to MCO — Orlando78.0%
- RDU to PHL — Philadelphia75.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.7%
- American Airlines on-time record80.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- US airports with the biggest gap between their best and worst month
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.