Carrier route record
DLRDU→FLL
Delta Air Lines · Raleigh to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on RDU to FLL lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on RDU to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.0%
Every carrier on RDU to FLL, 1,318 flights
These figures cover 364 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 RDU to FLL
Delta flew 364 of the 1,318 flights on RDU to FLL, about 28% of it. Its 78.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 82.6% to Spirit at 67.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 567 | 82.6% | 77 min | 1.76% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample | 364 | 78.8% | 65 min | 1.10% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 141 | 74.6% | 63 min | 2.13% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 45 | 71.1% | 73 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 67.0% | 75 min | 5.97% | C− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on RDU to FLL
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 364 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Delta's RDU to FLL record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 78.8% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Delta on RDU to FLL through the year
July is the worst month at 60.0% on time, 40 points below October, 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. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 66.0%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 4,903 reported delay minutes.
- 35%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,730 minutes out of 4,903, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,903 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 680 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.4% on time across 364 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 RDU to FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 364 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 78.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 358 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to FLL, every carrier
- Delta on FLL to RDU, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on RDU to FLL82.6%
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to FLL74.6%
- Spirit Airlines on RDU to FLL67.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- Late aircraft, weather, or the airline: what actually causes US flight delays
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.