Route profile
LGA→RDU
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from New York to Raleigh–Durham, 431 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 17% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,239 flights. How this is calculated
LGA → RDU arrives on time 79.0% of the time; the return trip, RDU → LGA, arrives on time 75.2% of the time, a 3.9-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
LGA → RDU spends 33.4 minutes on the ground on a 431-mile trip: 24.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at LGA and 9.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at RDU.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why LGA → RDU flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
LGA → RDU cancelled 380 of 10,239 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 27. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 50.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 54 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 380 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
190 cancellations, 50.0% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
123 cancellations, 32.4% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
67 cancellations, 17.6% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
380 coded cancellations were recorded on LGA → RDU; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
51 min late
against a median of 10 min early
LGA → RDU has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 10 min early, but the worst tenth are 61 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 10,239 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at RDU after arriving from LGA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 32% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 8.6% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.4% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 3.71% of the time and diverts 0.18% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,841 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 51 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,239 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
LGA → RDU flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 89.8% of the time, against 70.3% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 19.5 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 91.3% on time from 1,146 flights
- 7 AM: 90.0% on time from 226 flights
- 8 AM: 87.7% on time from 833 flights
- 9 AM: too few flights to score
- 10 AM: 82.8% on time from 879 flights
- 11 AM: 83.2% on time from 767 flights
- 12 PM: 77.6% on time from 1,027 flights
- 1 PM: 81.9% on time from 885 flights
- 2 PM: 73.7% on time from 509 flights
- 3 PM: 74.2% on time from 707 flights
- 4 PM: 65.9% on time from 679 flights
- 5 PM: 70.5% on time from 790 flights
- 6 PM: 72.3% on time from 361 flights
- 7 PM: 61.6% on time from 466 flights
- 8 PM: 79.4% on time from 405 flights
- 9 PM: 76.1% on time from 356 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why LGA → RDU runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for LGA → RDU. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on LGA → RDU, at 49.9%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 89.8% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 70.3%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 4.1 times the normal rate at LGA against 2.6 times at RDU. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: LGA 9.0% against 2.2%, RDU 4.1% against 1.6%. Flights that did leave LGA in bad weather arrived on time 63.6% of the time, against 80.9% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | LGA | RDU |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 9.0% | 4.1% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 2.2% | 1.6% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 63.6% | 74.9% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.9% | 79.9% |
| Departures in bad weather | 56,339 | 16,672 |
Of the carriers on this route, Delta Air Lines (6.5% cancelled against 9.9% for the other carriers at LGA) cancelled the fewest departures from LGA in bad weather and Republic Airways (12.4% cancelled against 8.3% for the other carriers at LGA) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at LGA
All departures from LGA| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 10,841 | 6.5%below the others | 9.9% |
| American Airlines | 6,685 | 7.6%below the others | 9.3% |
| Frontier Airlines | 864 | 10.6%above the others | 8.7% |
| Endeavor Air | 5,488 | 8.7%above the others | 6.0% |
| Republic Airways | 18,154 | 12.4%above the others | 8.3% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from LGA and RDU, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from LGA on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: LGA (airlines), RDU, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 4,295 | 77.9% | 4.21% | -7 min | 7.8% |
| Endeavor Air | 3,026 | 84.8% | 3.34% | -15 min | 5.8% |
| American Airlines | 1,750 | 74.5% | 2.51% | -9 min | 14.2% |
| Frontier Airlines | 635 | 69.8% | 5.51% | -3 min | 14.7% |
| Delta Air Lines | 369 | 80.2% | 4.34% | -11 min | 7.6% |
Republic Airways flew 42.6% of the 10,075 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 5.51% of its flights here against 2.51% for American Airlines.
Endeavor Air arrived on time 15.0 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 8.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.3%
- Feb: 80.0%
- Mar: 81.2%
- Apr: 79.3%
- May: 79.1%
- Jun: 76.2%
- Jul: 68.7%
- Aug: 78.1%
- Sep: 84.2%
- Oct: 81.6%
- Nov: 82.8%
- Dec: 77.8%
July is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 15.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 70.5% from 332 flights
- August 2023: 81.9% from 357 flights
- September 2023: 80.3% from 337 flights
- October 2023: 85.2% from 359 flights
- November 2023: 84.6% from 312 flights
- December 2023: 89.8% from 279 flights
- January 2024: 79.5% from 302 flights
- February 2024: 85.8% from 312 flights
- March 2024: 87.2% from 328 flights
- April 2024: 79.2% from 368 flights
- May 2024: 80.7% from 368 flights
- June 2024: 81.3% from 349 flights
- July 2024: 70.5% from 366 flights
- August 2024: 72.2% from 360 flights
- September 2024: 89.7% from 352 flights
- October 2024: 89.8% from 367 flights
- November 2024: 94.9% from 334 flights
- December 2024: 82.0% from 323 flights
- January 2025: 81.0% from 212 flights
- February 2025: 78.8% from 197 flights
- March 2025: 84.7% from 199 flights
- April 2025: 78.8% from 217 flights
- May 2025: 73.4% from 221 flights
- June 2025: 66.2% from 238 flights
- July 2025: 65.0% from 252 flights
- August 2025: 80.7% from 245 flights
- September 2025: 81.5% from 255 flights
- October 2025: 65.4% from 270 flights
- November 2025: 64.7% from 257 flights
- December 2025: 57.3% from 241 flights
- January 2026: 80.8% from 217 flights
- February 2026: 71.8% from 210 flights
- March 2026: 66.5% from 204 flights
- April 2026: 79.9% from 203 flights
- May 2026: 82.4% from 207 flights
- June 2026: 79.6% from 154 flights
- July 2026: 65.9% from 135 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 72.8% against 80.6% in the 12 months before — declining by 7.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,239 LGA → RDU flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed