Route reliability record
JFK→RDU
New York to Raleigh
- Flights
- 2,335
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 427 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,335 JFK to RDU flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,376 at 75.0% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to RDU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.4%, against 72.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,179 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.51%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.0% on time across 1,376 flights
These figures cover 2,335 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 JFK to RDU
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 75.0% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 959 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,376 | 75.0% | 66 min | 6.32% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 959 | 68.6% | 85 min | 6.78% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 6.8% 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 JFK 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 New York 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. 2 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 | 72.2% | 74.2% | 2.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1890 07:15 |
| 2. JFK → RDUNew York to Raleigh | Republic Airways | 70.3% | 75.0% | 6.32% | 8am–11am, Sat | YX 4658 12:59 |
| 3. LGA → RDUNew York to Raleigh | Republic Airways | 68.9% | 73.1% | 5.78% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. JFK → RDUNew York to Raleigh | JetBlue Airways | 63.9% | 68.6% | 6.78% | 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 25 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am39 flights86.1%
- 8am–11am579 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm435 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm408 flights65.7%
- 5pm–8pm305 flights61.1%
- 8pm–5am569 flights64.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.1% on time, against 86.1% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 579 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to RDU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.1%, a wide gap of 25.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.1%
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm83.1%
- 2–5pm65.7%
- 5–8pm61.1%
- 8pm–5am64.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 35 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 50.6% on time, 35 points below May, the best at 86.0%. 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 248 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.5%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 45,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 44,811 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 86.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.51%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
11.5% 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 427 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 74.6% on time across 2,334 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 2,335 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 6.51% 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. 2,179 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to RDU questions
How often is JFK to RDU delayed?
Roughly 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 27.6% of the 2,335 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 JFK to RDU?
Republic Airways leads at 75.0% on time across 1,376 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.6%, a gap of 6 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 JFK to RDU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.1%, 25 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 JFK to RDU?
July is the weakest month at 50.6% on time, compared with 86.0% in May. Across the year that is 35 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on JFK to RDU75.0%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to RDU68.6%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ATL to RDU, a related route80.0%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record68.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to RDU and RDU to JFK 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.