Route reliability record
MSP→RDU
Minneapolis to Raleigh
- Flights
- 1,231
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 980 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,231 MSP to RDU flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to RDU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.6%, against 82.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,216 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.8% on time across 1,228 flights
These figures cover 1,231 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP 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 Lines | 1,228 | 82.8% | 56 min | 1.06% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 50.0% | 20 min | 33.33% | F− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am325 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am189 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm56 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm297 flights78.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am364 flights78.1%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.3% of the time, against 78.0% for the afternoon window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to RDU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 78.0%, a wide gap of 12.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am87.2%
- 11am–2pm79.6%
- 2–5pm78.0%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am78.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 94.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.3%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,241 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,806 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
The 980 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 83.4% on time across 1,231 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 1,231 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 94.0% on time and March 69.0%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,216 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to RDU questions
How often is MSP to RDU delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.3% of the 1,231 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to RDU compared with the rest of the country?
82.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to RDU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 78.0%, 12 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 March delays on MSP to RDU?
March is the weakest month at 69.0% on time, compared with 94.0% in October. 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ATL to RDU, a related route80.0%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record50.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to RDU and RDU to MSP 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.