Route reliability record
RDU→LGA
Raleigh to New York
- Flights
- 2,713
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 431 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 2,713 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,544 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
69.3% on time across 2,134 flights
These figures cover 2,713 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
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 | 34 | 96.9% | 17 min | 5.88% | A− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 344 | 72.7% | 95 min | 4.07% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 2,134 | 69.3% | 83 min | 6.42% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 61.0% | 91 min | 5.97% | D− |
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 37 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–8am318 flights82.8%
- 8am–11am405 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm577 flights64.6%
- 2pm–5pm784 flights69.6%
- 5pm–8pm585 flights57.3%
- 8pm–5am44 flights47.4%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 47.4% 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 784 flights scheduled in it.
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 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.8%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 66,000 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 66,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 65,971 reported delay minutes.
44% 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 29,000 minutes out of 66,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 6.08%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.6% on time across 2,715 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,713 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.08% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 2,544 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.5% of the 2,713 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is RDU to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
69.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 47.4%, 37 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
- American Airlines on-time record96.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record69.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.