Route reliability record
ORD→RDU
Chicago to Raleigh
- Flights
- 3,742
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 646 mi
- Carriers
- 7
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,742 ORD to RDU flights, of which Envoy Air flew 519 at 77.8% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to RDU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 77.2%, against 72.9% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.8% on time across 519 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,654 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.30%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
77.8% on time across 519 flights
These figures cover 3,742 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% 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 ORD to RDU
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 77.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 56.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 520 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 154 | 80.1% | 52 min | 1.95% | B |
| Envoy Air | 519 | 77.8% | 53 min | 1.93% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,296 | 75.6% | 77 min | 1.16% | B |
| Republic Airways | 1,153 | 75.0% | 72 min | 3.21% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 98 | 62.8% | 142 min | 4.08% | D− |
| American Airlines | 520 | 56.5% | 113 min | 3.27% | D− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 85 min | 0.00% | F+ |
American Airlines cancels 3.3% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago 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. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → RDUChicago to Raleigh | Southwest Airlines | 78.2% | 79.8% | 1.98% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. ORD → RDUChicago to Raleigh | Envoy Air | 76.3% | 77.8% | 1.93% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → RDUChicago to Raleigh | United Airlines | 74.7% | 75.6% | 1.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. ORD → RDUChicago to Raleigh | Republic Airways | 72.6% | 75.0% | 3.21% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 5. ORD → RDUChicago to Raleigh | American Airlines | 54.7% | 56.5% | 3.27% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
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 30 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am432 flights84.5%
- 8am–11am991 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm374 flights73.7%
- 2pm–5pm778 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm763 flights62.4%
- 8pm–5am404 flights54.5%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.5% on time, against 84.5% 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 991 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to RDU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.5%, a wide gap of 30.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.5%
- 8–11am82.6%
- 11am–2pm73.7%
- 2–5pm73.0%
- 5–8pm62.4%
- 8pm–5am54.5%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
August is the worst month at 66.4% on time, 15 points below September, the best at 81.6%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 374 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.3%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 81,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 81,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 81,149 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 84.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.30% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.1% 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.
The 646 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 74.3% on time across 3,740 flights, within about 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 3,742 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. September runs 81.6% on time and August 66.4%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,654 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to RDU questions
How often is ORD to RDU delayed?
About 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 27.1% of the 3,742 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to RDU?
Envoy Air leads at 77.8% on time across 519 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 56.5%, a gap of 21 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 ORD to RDU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.5%, 30 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 August delays on ORD to RDU?
August is the weakest month at 66.4% on time, compared with 81.6% in September. Across the year that is 15 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to RDU80.1%
- Envoy Air on ORD to RDU77.8%
- United Airlines on ORD to RDU75.6%
- Republic Airways on ORD to RDU75.0%
- American Airlines on ORD to RDU56.5%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to RDU, a related route80.0%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record77.8%
- United Airlines on-time record75.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to RDU and RDU to ORD 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.