Flight number record
WN 46
Southwest Airlines · Houston to Dallas
- Route
- HOU → DAL
- Departs
- 17:30
- Flights
- 255
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s WN 46, check with Southwest Airlines.
WN 46 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 255 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so WN 46 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 249 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.96%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 255 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When WN 46 flies
WN 46 is scheduled to leave Houston (HOU) at 17:30 local time and reach Dallas (DAL) at 18:40. That slot held for 239 of the 255 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.
- Departs 17:30239 flights93.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 17:30 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and WN 46 runs 4 points better at 72.3%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
WN 46 next to HOU to DAL
Every carrier on HOU to DAL combined arrived on time 81.6% of the time across 4,039 flights, so WN 46 is 9 points behind it. Across its whole network Southwest Airlines managed 75.7%, which this flight trails by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WN 46thin sample | 255 | 72.3% | 56 min | 1.96% | C |
| All Southwest Airlines on HOU–DAL | 4,039 | 81.6% | 56 min | 2.10% | B |
| All carriers on HOU–DAL | 4,039 | 81.6% | 56 min | 2.10% | B |
| Southwest Airlines, whole network | 1,391,794 | 75.7% | 53 min | 0.92% | B+ |
Across the year
WN 46 quarter by quarter
WN 46 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 57.4%, a swing of 26 points on roughly 64 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202565 flights68.9%
- Jan–Mar 202671 flights83.1%
- Apr–Jun 202662 flights57.4%
- Jul–Sep 202627 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, WN 46 ranged from 63.0% on Thursday to 74.4% on Tuesday. With about 36 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late WN 46 runs when it is late
The 69 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early48 flights19.3%
- Within 15 min132 flights53.0%
- 15–29 min late28 flights11.2%
- 30–59 min late21 flights8.4%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late9 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 249 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
23 of 84 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for WN 46
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 March 2026, 4 hours 36 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across March, June, November and October, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 March 2026 | 4 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 June 2026 | 3 hours 43 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 24 November 2025 | 3 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 October 2025 | 3 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 June 2026 | 2 hours 47 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why WN 46 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 3,872 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 3%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,872 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 3,872 delay minutes reported on WN 46.
Cancellations sit at 1.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.0% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on fourteen other city pairs in the data, including DAL to BNA (48), DAL to FLL (35) and DAL to ABQ (24), but none flew often enough under WN 46 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to HOU to DAL only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 255 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 WN 46
For a booking, WN 46 is one of the weaker ways to fly HOU to DAL: 9 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- HOU to DAL, every carrier and departure
- DAL to HOU, the return direction
- Southwest Airlines 1636 on the same route95.1%
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record
- Every Southwest Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
A flight number here means Southwest Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
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.