Route reliability record
BOS→RDU
Boston to Raleigh
- Flights
- 2,848
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 612 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,848 BOS to RDU flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,436 at 77.1% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to RDU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.9%, against 75.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,759 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.1% on time across 1,436 flights
These figures cover 2,848 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to RDU
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 133 | 82.0% | 75 min | 3.76% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,436 | 77.1% | 85 min | 2.65% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 174 | 73.1% | 51 min | 1.15% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,105 | 73.0% | 74 min | 3.53% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.5% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on BOS to RDU
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Boston to Raleigh
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BOS → RDUBoston to Raleigh | Delta Air Lines | 75.1% | 77.1% | 2.65% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2066 06:30 |
| 2. BOS → RDUBoston to Raleigh | JetBlue Airways | 70.4% | 73.0% | 3.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 1883 07:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 39 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am591 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am482 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm573 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm362 flights77.8%
- 5pm–8pm408 flights64.6%
- 8pm–5am432 flights51.2%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.2% on time, against 90.0% 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 591 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to RDU 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 BOS to RDU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 51.2%, a wide gap of 38.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.0%
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm78.3%
- 2–5pm77.8%
- 5–8pm64.6%
- 8pm–5am51.2%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 68.3% on time, 15 points below April, the best at 83.1%. 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 292 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 52,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 52,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 52,457 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 18,000 of the 52,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.95%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 612 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.5% on time across 2,847 flights, 3 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,848 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in RDU after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.95% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,759 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to RDU questions
How often is BOS to RDU delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.5% of the 2,848 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 BOS to RDU?
Delta Air Lines leads at 77.1% on time across 1,436 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.0%, a gap of 4 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 BOS to RDU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.2%, 39 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 BOS to RDU?
July is the weakest month at 68.3% on time, compared with 83.1% in April. Across the year that is 15 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 BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on BOS to RDU82.0%
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to RDU77.1%
- Frontier Airlines on BOS to RDU73.1%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to RDU73.0%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ATL to RDU, a related route80.0%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to RDU and RDU to BOS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.