Route reliability record
LGA→RDU
New York to Raleigh
- Flights
- 2,492
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 431 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.6% 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 2,492 LGA to RDU flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to RDU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.6% of the time and Saturday flights 80.3%, against 71.9% 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 54 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,350 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
73.1% on time across 1,921 flights
These figures cover 2,492 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 LGA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 344 | 80.8% | 71 min | 4.65% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,921 | 73.1% | 63 min | 5.78% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 139 | 54.6% | 82 min | 5.76% | F− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 88 | 38.6% | 111 min | 5.68% | F− |
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.
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. 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 | 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 43 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am255 flights94.6%
- 8am–11am663 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm524 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm420 flights65.8%
- 5pm–8pm454 flights51.4%
- 8pm–5am176 flights61.8%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.4% on time, against 94.6% 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 663 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA 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 LGA to RDU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 51.4%, a wide gap of 43.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.6%
- 8–11am78.5%
- 11am–2pm78.0%
- 2–5pm65.8%
- 5–8pm51.4%
- 8pm–5am61.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 57.3% on time, against 82.4% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 270 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.3%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 4%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. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 45,632 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 94.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.62%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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 431 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 69.7% on time across 2,489 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 2,492 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 5.62% 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. 2,350 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to RDU questions
How often is LGA 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 28.1% of the 2,492 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to RDU compared with the rest of the country?
71.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to RDU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 51.4%, 43 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 LGA to RDU?
December is the weakest month at 57.3% on time, compared with 82.4% in May. Across the year that is 25 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to RDU80.8%
- Republic Airways on LGA to RDU73.1%
- Frontier Airlines on LGA to RDU54.6%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ATL to RDU, a related route80.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record54.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to RDU and RDU to LGA 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.