Carrier route record

DLLAX→RDU

Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Raleigh

Flights: 382
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 48%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on LAX to RDU lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 382 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's LAX to RDU record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 377 completed flights

Avg delay

49 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.79%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.6%

Every carrier on LAX to RDU, 801 flights

These figures cover 382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on LAX to RDU

Delta flew 382 of the 801 flights on LAX to RDU, about 48% of it. Its 81.7% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.7% to American at 75.7%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to RDU
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	382	81.7%	49 min	0.79%	B+
American Airlines	419	75.7%	123 min	0.72%	B+

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 382 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am287 flights81.6%
11am–2pm76 flights88.0%
2pm–5pm1 flights—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am18 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 88.0% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 81.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 287 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on LAX to RDU through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.June best, July worst

July is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 33 points below June, the best at 100.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 46 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.4%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 65% of the 3,387 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.

Carrier
65%
National Airspace System
26%
Late-arriving aircraft
9%

The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,188 of the 3,387 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,387 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

At 2,239 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 84.5% on time across 383 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 382 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Delta on LAX to RDU

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 382 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 81.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 377 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures