Carrier route record

DLRDU→LAX

Delta Air Lines · Raleigh to Los Angeles

Flights: 383
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 48%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on RDU to LAX earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 383 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's RDU to LAX record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 69 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 380 completed flights

Avg delay

75 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.78%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.4%

Every carrier on RDU to LAX, 802 flights

These figures cover 383 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on RDU to LAX

Delta flew 383 of the 802 flights on RDU to LAX, about 48% of it. Its 84.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 84.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.5% to American at 84.3%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on RDU to LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	383	84.5%	75 min	0.78%	B+
American Airlines	419	84.3%	89 min	0.95%	B+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on RDU to LAX

DL 46207:4586.0% · 304 flights

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am123 flights94.3%
8am–11am2 flights—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm24 flights—
5pm–8pm234 flights78.9%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.3% of the time, against 78.9% for the evening 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 234 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on RDU to LAX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, April worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 96.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 46 flights.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 75.5%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 4,423 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
54%
Late-arriving aircraft
29%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,384 of the 4,423 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,423 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 94.3% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.78%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.

At 2,239 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 81.7% on time across 382 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 383 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 LAX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 383 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 84.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 380 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures