Route reliability record
ATL→HOU
Atlanta to Houston
- Flights
- 2,847
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 696 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,847 ATL to HOU flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,386 at 80.6% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to HOU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.6%, against 80.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,800 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.6% on time across 1,386 flights
These figures cover 2,847 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 ATL to HOU
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,386 | 80.6% | 56 min | 2.09% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,461 | 79.5% | 60 min | 0.82% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 80.6%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to HOU
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Houston
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → IAHAtlanta to Houston | United Airlines | 84.7% | 85.3% | 0.70% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. ATL → HOUAtlanta to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 78.9% | 80.6% | 2.09% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1509 08:10 |
| 3. ATL → HOUAtlanta to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 78.8% | 79.5% | 0.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. ATL → IAHAtlanta to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 74.5% | 76.0% | 1.97% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1682 10:10 |
| 5. ATL → IAHAtlanta to Houston | Frontier Airlines | 68.4% | 69.5% | 1.57% | 5pm–8pm, Thu | F9 1403 06:07 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 28 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am325 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am545 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm559 flights87.2%
- 2pm–5pm595 flights77.7%
- 5pm–8pm320 flights65.0%
- 8pm–5am503 flights67.6%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.1% of the time, against 65.0% for the evening window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 595 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to HOU 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 ATL to HOU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.0%, a wide gap of 28.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.1%
- 8–11am87.9%
- 11am–2pm87.2%
- 2–5pm77.7%
- 5–8pm65.0%
- 8pm–5am67.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
July is the worst month at 70.9% on time, 18 points below February, the best at 88.9%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 256 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.1%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 32,312 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 32,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.44% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 696 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 79.2% on time across 2,850 flights, within about 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 2,847 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 HOU 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. February runs 88.9% on time and July 70.9%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,800 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to HOU questions
How often is ATL to HOU delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.0% of the 2,847 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to HOU?
Delta Air Lines leads at 80.6% on time across 1,386 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 79.5%, a gap of about a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to HOU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.0%, 28 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 July delays on ATL to HOU?
July is the weakest month at 70.9% on time, compared with 88.9% in February. Across the year that is 18 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
- HOU to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to HOU80.6%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to HOU79.5%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.5%
- 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. ATL to HOU and HOU to ATL 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.