Carrier route record
AARDU→MIA
American Airlines · Raleigh to Miami
- Flights
- 1,705
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on RDU to MIA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,705 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on RDU to MIA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,673 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.8%
Every carrier on RDU to MIA, 2,350 flights
These figures cover 1,705 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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
American against every carrier on RDU to MIA
American flew 1,705 of the 2,350 flights on RDU to MIA, most of the route. Its 77.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.5% to Republic at 58.6%. Four 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 360 | 80.5% | 82 min | 1.67% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,705 | 77.2% | 102 min | 1.64% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 70 | 72.5% | 55 min | 1.43% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 185 | 70.2% | 89 min | 3.78% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 30 | 58.6% | 49 min | 3.33% | D− |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 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–8am429 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am326 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm352 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm473 flights60.0%
- 8pm–5am125 flights68.9%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.0% on time, against 92.5% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 473 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on RDU to MIA through the year
July is the worst month at 68.6% on time, 16 points below April, the best at 84.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 177 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.0%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 39,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 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 38,820 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 15,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.7% 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.
The 700 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.4% on time across 1,700 flights, 6 points below 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,705 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 American on RDU to MIA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 84.6% on time and July 68.6%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,673 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to MIA, every carrier
- American on MIA to RDU, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to MIA80.5%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to MIA70.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.