Carrier route record
UAEWR→RDU
United Airlines · Newark to Raleigh
- Flights
- 1,515
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 77%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR to RDU 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 1,515 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,479 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.8%
Every carrier on EWR to RDU, 1,976 flights
These figures cover 1,515 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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
United against every carrier on EWR to RDU
United flew 1,515 of the 1,976 flights on EWR to RDU, most of the route. Its 76.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 93.6% to Spirit at 60.8%. 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 | 241 | 93.6% | 49 min | 3.32% | A− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,515 | 76.3% | 71 min | 2.31% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 220 | 60.8% | 73 min | 8.64% | D− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on EWR to RDU
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 30 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–8am306 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am314 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm410 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm206 flights72.5%
- 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 92.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 410 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to RDU through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 87.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. November was the busiest month here, with 160 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.7%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 25,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
51% 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 25,000 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 25,000 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 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.31% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.3% 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 75.9% on time across 1,517 flights, within half a point 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 1,515 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 October 63.6%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,479 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 RDU93.6%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to RDU60.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- 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. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.