Route reliability record
EWR→RDU
Newark to Raleigh
- Flights
- 1,976
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 416 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 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 1,976 EWR to RDU flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly EWR to RDU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.9%, against 76.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,911 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.14%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
76.3% on time across 1,515 flights
These figures cover 1,976 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 airline is most reliable on EWR to RDU
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 241 | 93.6% | 49 min | 3.32% | A− |
| United Airlines | 1,515 | 76.3% | 71 min | 2.31% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 220 | 60.8% | 73 min | 8.64% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark to Raleigh
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → RDUNewark to Raleigh | United Airlines | 74.5% | 76.3% | 2.31% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1890 07:15 |
| 2. JFK → RDUNew York to Raleigh | Republic Airways | 74.3% | 78.6% | 5.49% | 11am–2pm, Sat | YX 4658 15:59 |
| 3. LGA → RDUNew York to Raleigh | Republic Airways | 69.0% | 73.3% | 5.85% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. JFK → RDUNew York to Raleigh | JetBlue Airways | 68.8% | 71.8% | 4.22% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am366 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am375 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm86 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm663 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm207 flights72.2%
- 8pm–5am279 flights62.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 91.3% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 663 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 65.9% on time, against 87.2% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. April was the busiest month here, with 197 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.5%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 31,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 31,412 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 91.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.14%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 416 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 74.9% on time across 1,975 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,976 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 3.14% 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. 1,911 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to RDU questions
How often is EWR 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 23.2% of the 1,976 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is EWR to RDU compared with the rest of the country?
76.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EWR to RDU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.2%, 29 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 December delays on EWR to RDU?
December is the weakest month at 65.9% on time, compared with 87.2% in May. Across the year that is 21 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on EWR to RDU93.6%
- United Airlines on EWR to RDU76.3%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to RDU60.8%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.1%
- ATL to RDU, a related route80.4%
- EWR to ATL, a related route77.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record93.6%
- United Airlines on-time record76.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record60.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EWR to RDU and RDU to EWR 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.