Carrier route record
DLRDU→LGA
Delta Air Lines · Raleigh to New York
- Flights
- 344
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 14%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on RDU to LGA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 344 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Delta on RDU to LGA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 330 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.07%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
69.7%
Every carrier on RDU to LGA, 2,489 flights
These figures cover 344 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on RDU to LGA
Delta flew 344 of the 2,489 flights on RDU to LGA, about 14% of it. Its 72.7% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.1% to Frontier at 56.9%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 87 | 84.1% | 67 min | 5.75% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page)thin 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.
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3 flights—
- 8am–11am84 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm192 flights64.5%
- 2pm–5pm63 flights82.0%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 64.5% on time against 84.8% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 192 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on RDU to LGA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025211 flights63.4%
- Jan–Mar 202674 flights85.7%
- Apr–Jun 202629 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.7% on time across 344 flights.
Split by quarter, Delta on RDU to LGA logged 30 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 211 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 74 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 29 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 72.7% annual figure is the one to use.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 64.3%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on RDU to LGA runs when it is late
Delta on RDU to LGA often beats the schedule: 117 of 330 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 90 late arrivals split 15 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 45 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early117 flights35.5%
- Within 15 min123 flights37.3%
- 15–29 min late15 flights4.5%
- 30–59 min late30 flights9.1%
- 1–2 hours late26 flights7.9%
- 2+ hours late19 flights5.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 330 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 76 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 8 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 22 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at LGA.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on RDU to LGA
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 November 2025, 18 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 November 2025 | 18 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 7 hours 39 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 November 2025 | 5 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 December 2025 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 October 2025 | 4 hours 8 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
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 8,554 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,554 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 to one. The split is drawn from 8,554 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 3,434 minutes out of 8,554, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.07%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 costs
13.6% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.8% on time across 344 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 344 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 LGA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.07% 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. 330 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to LGA, every carrier
- Delta on LGA to RDU, the return leg
- Republic Airways on RDU to LGA69.5%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to LGA56.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.