Route reliability record
RDU→ATL
Raleigh to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,643
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 356 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 4,643 RDU to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,812 at 88.3% on time.
Best time to fly RDU to ATL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.2%, against 86.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 92 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,563 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.59%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
88.3% on time across 3,812 flights
These figures cover 4,643 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.3% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 74.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 646 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 185 | 90.2% | 62 min | 1.08% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,812 | 88.3% | 82 min | 1.50% | A |
| Frontier Airlines | 646 | 74.6% | 99 min | 2.32% | C |
The spread between Delta and Frontier is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on RDU to ATL
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.
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 Raleigh to Atlanta
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. RDU → ATLRaleigh to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 87.0% | 88.3% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1530 08:50 |
| 2. RDU → ATLRaleigh to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 72.9% | 74.6% | 2.32% | 5am–8am, Thu | F9 4797 06:15 |
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 15 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,325 flights89.5%
- 8am–11am728 flights91.8%
- 11am–2pm999 flights87.6%
- 2pm–5pm690 flights83.6%
- 5pm–8pm685 flights79.3%
- 8pm–5am216 flights76.9%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 76.9% for the overnight window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,325 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RDU to ATL 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 RDU to ATL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 76.9%, a wide gap of 14.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am89.5%
- 8–11am91.8%
- 11am–2pm87.6%
- 2–5pm83.6%
- 5–8pm79.3%
- 8pm–5am76.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 76.2% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 95.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 416 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.2%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 53,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 53,151 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.59% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 356 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.0% on time across 4,642 flights, 7 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,643 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 ATL 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 95.5% on time and July 76.2%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,563 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to ATL questions
How often is RDU to ATL delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.5% of the 4,643 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 RDU to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 88.3% on time across 3,812 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 74.6%, a gap of 14 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 RDU to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 76.9%, 15 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 RDU to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 76.2% on time, compared with 95.5% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- ATL to RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to ATL90.2%
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to ATL88.3%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to ATL74.6%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.3%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- RDU to CLT, a related route81.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record90.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record74.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. RDU to ATL and ATL to RDU are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed RDU to ATL’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.