Route reliability record
DFW→HOU
Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston
- Flights
- 2,048
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 247 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,048 DFW to HOU flights, of which Envoy Air flew 1,061 at 81.1% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to HOU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.5%, against 76.9% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.1% on time across 1,061 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,962 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.91%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
81.1% on time across 1,061 flights
These figures cover 2,048 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to HOU
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 81.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 71.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 607 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 1,061 | 81.1% | 53 min | 2.83% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 380 | 73.7% | 62 min | 5.00% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 607 | 71.4% | 96 min | 5.11% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth 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. DFW → HOUDallas-Fort Worth to Houston | Envoy Air | 78.8% | 81.1% | 2.83% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. DFW → IAHDallas-Fort Worth to Houston | Envoy Air | 75.7% | 78.0% | 2.98% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → IAHDallas-Fort Worth to Houston | United Airlines | 75.4% | 76.9% | 1.99% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2260 05:15 |
| 4. DAL → HOUDallas to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 72.8% | 74.1% | 1.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | WN 1628 06:00 |
| 5. DFW → HOUDallas-Fort Worth to Houston | SkyWest Airlines | 70.0% | 73.7% | 5.00% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am237 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am510 flights85.9%
- 11am–2pm164 flights87.3%
- 2pm–5pm526 flights69.4%
- 5pm–8pm357 flights62.1%
- 8pm–5am254 flights75.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.1% on time, against 90.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 526 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 83.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 210 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.9%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 31,972 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.91%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
At 247 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 77.9% on time across 2,048 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 2,048 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.91% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,962 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to HOU questions
How often is DFW to HOU delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.1% of the 2,048 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to HOU?
Envoy Air leads at 81.1% on time across 1,061 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 71.4%, a gap of 10 points. 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 DFW to HOU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.1%, 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 April delays on DFW to HOU?
April is the weakest month at 66.4% on time, compared with 83.5% in November. Across the year that is 17 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to HOU81.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on DFW to HOU73.7%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to HOU71.4%
- DFW to ORD, a related route67.6%
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.1%
- DFW to LGA, a related route67.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record71.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to HOU and HOU to DFW 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.