Route reliability record
CLT→IAH
Charlotte to Houston
- Flights
- 2,315
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 912 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,315 CLT to IAH flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to IAH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.1%, against 79.2% 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
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,267 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.94%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.4% on time across 1,608 flights
These figures cover 2,315 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to IAH
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 340 | 89.0% | 102 min | 1.18% | A |
| American Airlines | 1,608 | 78.4% | 74 min | 1.49% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 108 | 77.4% | 73 min | 1.85% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 259 | 71.7% | 89 min | 5.79% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT to IAH
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am555 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am283 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm344 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm438 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm470 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am225 flights71.3%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 68.0% for the evening window. That is 22 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 555 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to IAH 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 CLT to IAH, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.0%, a wide gap of 22.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am89.1%
- 8–11am90.0%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm74.5%
- 5–8pm68.0%
- 8pm–5am71.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 64.8% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 89.6%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 227 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.9%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 37,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 37,140 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 912 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 81.8% on time across 2,314 flights, within 3 points 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 2,315 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 IAH 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. September runs 89.6% on time and July 64.8%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,267 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to IAH questions
How often is CLT to IAH 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 20.8% of the 2,315 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to IAH compared with the rest of the country?
79.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to IAH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.0%, 22 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 CLT to IAH?
July is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 89.6% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- IAH to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on CLT to IAH89.0%
- American Airlines on CLT to IAH78.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on CLT to IAH77.4%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to IAH71.7%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- United Airlines on-time record89.0%
- American Airlines on-time record78.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.4%
- 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. CLT to IAH and IAH to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CLT to IAH’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.