Route reliability record
RDU→LGA
Raleigh to New York
- Flights
- 2,489
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 431 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 2,489 RDU to LGA flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly RDU to LGA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.5% of the time and Saturday flights 78.0%, against 69.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,333 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
69.5% on time across 1,919 flights
These figures cover 2,489 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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 RDU to LGA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 87 | 84.1% | 67 min | 5.75% | B− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 344 | 72.7% | 95 min | 4.07% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 1,919 | 69.5% | 80 min | 6.57% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 139 | 56.9% | 58 min | 6.47% | D− |
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 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. 3 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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am327 flights82.2%
- 8am–11am401 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm570 flights66.9%
- 2pm–5pm609 flights68.4%
- 5pm–8pm489 flights56.7%
- 8pm–5am93 flights53.8%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.8% on time, against 84.5% for the 8am–11am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 609 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RDU to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 53.8%, a wide gap of 30.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am82.2%
- 8–11am84.5%
- 11am–2pm66.9%
- 2–5pm68.4%
- 5–8pm56.7%
- 8pm–5am53.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 79.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 269 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 11 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 57,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 56,535 reported delay minutes.
41% 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 23,000 minutes out of 57,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 6.19%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
13.1% 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.
At 431 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 runs 71.9% on time across 2,492 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 2,489 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.19% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,333 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to LGA questions
How often is RDU to LGA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.3% of the 2,489 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is RDU to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
69.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RDU to LGA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.8%, 31 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 November delays on RDU to LGA?
November is the weakest month at 58.2% on time, compared with 79.2% in May. Across the year that is 21 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
- LGA to RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to LGA72.7%
- Republic Airways on RDU to LGA69.5%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to LGA56.9%
- RDU to ATL, a related route86.5%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.3%
- American Airlines on-time record84.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record69.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. RDU to LGA and LGA 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.