Route reliability record
RDU→MSP
Raleigh to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,231
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 980 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,231 RDU to MSP flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly RDU to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.5%, against 83.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 61 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,213 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.30%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.4% on time across 1,228 flights
These figures cover 1,231 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to MSP
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 33.33% | A− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,228 | 83.4% | 86 min | 1.22% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on RDU to MSP
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm326 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm198 flights84.3%
- 5pm–8pm342 flights76.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 76.5% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RDU to MSP 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 MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.5%, a wide gap of 13.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.0%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm84.3%
- 5–8pm76.5%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
December is the weak month at 65.9% on time, against 94.8% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 54% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. The split is drawn from 17,207 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,349 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.30% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 980 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.
The return leg runs 82.7% on time across 1,231 flights, within half a point 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 1,231 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 MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 94.8% on time and December 65.9%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,213 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to MSP questions
How often is RDU to MSP delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.6% of the 1,231 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is RDU to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
83.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RDU to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.5%, 14 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 December delays on RDU to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 65.9% on time, compared with 94.8% in October. Across the year that is 29 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
- MSP to RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- RDU to ATL, a related route86.5%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. RDU to MSP and MSP 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.