Carrier route record
UAEWR→RDU
United Airlines · Newark to Raleigh
- Flights
- 1,541
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 77%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR to RDU sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,541 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on EWR to RDU from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,498 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.7%
Every carrier on EWR to RDU, 1,994 flights
These figures cover 1,541 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on EWR to RDU
United flew 1,541 of the 1,994 flights on EWR to RDU, most of the route. Its 74.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 94.3% to Spirit at 59.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 273 | 94.3% | 50 min | 4.40% | A− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,541 | 74.2% | 78 min | 2.66% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 59.1% | 70 min | 8.33% | D− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on EWR to RDU
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am313 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am275 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm410 flights72.9%
- 5pm–8pm298 flights65.7%
- 8pm–5am245 flights62.4%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.4% on time, against 90.5% 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 410 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to RDU through the year
July is the worst month at 53.2% on time, 34 points below April, the best at 87.0%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 160 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on EWR to RDU runs when it is late
United on EWR to RDU often beats the schedule: 463 of 1,498 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 386 late arrivals split 112 under half an hour, 107 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 167 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early463 flights30.9%
- Within 15 min649 flights43.3%
- 15–29 min late112 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late107 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late93 flights6.2%
- 2+ hours late74 flights4.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,498 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
43 of 343 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 86 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at RDU.
The worst days
Worst days for United on EWR to RDU
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 September 2025, 9 hours 42 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 September 2025 | 9 hours 42 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 27 July 2026 | 7 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 February 2026 | 6 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 July 2026 | 6 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 September 2025 | 6 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 30,007 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 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.66%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 costs
11.1% 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.
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 77.0% on time across 1,543 flights, within 3 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 1,541 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on EWR to RDU
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 87.0% on time and July 53.2%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,498 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to RDU, every carrier
- United on RDU to EWR, the return leg
- Republic Airways on EWR to RDU94.3%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to RDU59.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.