Route reliability record
RDU→JFK
Raleigh to New York
- Flights
- 2,334
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 427 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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, close to three flights in four 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 2,334 RDU to JFK flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,375 at 77.2% on time.
Best time to fly RDU to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.6%, against 74.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,199 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
77.2% on time across 1,375 flights
These figures cover 2,334 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 RDU to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 77.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 959 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,375 | 77.2% | 74 min | 4.58% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 959 | 70.8% | 81 min | 6.99% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 7.0% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on RDU to JFK
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Raleigh to New York
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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. RDU → EWRRaleigh to Newark | United Airlines | 75.4% | 77.0% | 2.07% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. RDU → JFKRaleigh to New York | Republic Airways | 73.7% | 77.2% | 4.58% | 8am–11am, Fri | YX 4765 11:59 |
| 3. RDU → JFKRaleigh to New York | JetBlue Airways | 65.9% | 70.8% | 6.99% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. RDU → LGARaleigh to New York | Republic Airways | 64.9% | 69.5% | 6.57% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am607 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am280 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm538 flights73.3%
- 2pm–5pm339 flights78.6%
- 5pm–8pm432 flights52.7%
- 8pm–5am138 flights45.6%
Scale runs 35% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 45.6% on time, against 88.5% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 607 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RDU to JFK 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 JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 45.6%, a wide gap of 42.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am87.3%
- 11am–2pm73.3%
- 2–5pm78.6%
- 5–8pm52.7%
- 8pm–5am45.6%
best all US flightsScale 35% 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 64.8% on time, 19 points below April, the best at 84.0%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 247 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 43,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 43,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 43,046 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 88.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.57%, 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
10.7% 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 427 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 72.4% on time across 2,335 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 2,334 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.57% 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. 2,199 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to JFK questions
How often is RDU to JFK 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 25.4% of the 2,334 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to JFK?
Republic Airways leads at 77.2% on time across 1,375 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 70.8%, a gap of 6 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 JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 45.6%, 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 July delays on RDU to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 84.0% in April. 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
- JFK to RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on RDU to JFK77.2%
- JetBlue Airways on RDU to JFK70.8%
- RDU to ATL, a related route86.5%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.2%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record70.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. RDU to JFK and JFK to RDU 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.