Route reliability record
DFW→IAH
Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston
- Flights
- 5,800
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 224 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 5,800 DFW to IAH flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,457 at 79.1% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to IAH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.4%, against 70.7% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.1% on time across 2,457 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,650 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
79.1% on time across 2,457 flights
These figures cover 5,800 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to IAH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 79.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 59.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,513 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 37 | 86.1% | 100 min | 2.70% | A |
| United Airlines | 2,457 | 79.1% | 81 min | 1.71% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 83 | 78.5% | 90 min | 4.82% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 710 | 78.0% | 58 min | 2.39% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,513 | 59.9% | 81 min | 3.06% | D− |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW 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.
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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 | 80.4% | 82.8% | 2.86% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → IAHDallas-Fort Worth to Houston | United Airlines | 77.7% | 79.1% | 1.71% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 2260 05:15 |
| 3. DFW → IAHDallas-Fort Worth to Houston | Envoy Air | 76.1% | 78.0% | 2.39% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
| 4. DAL → HOUDallas to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 74.8% | 1.95% | 5am–8am, Tue | WN 1628 06:00 |
| 5. DFW → HOUDallas-Fort Worth to Houston | SkyWest Airlines | 72.3% | 74.6% | 3.12% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 26 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,035 flights81.6%
- 8am–11am1,002 flights75.9%
- 11am–2pm667 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm1,266 flights71.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,242 flights61.9%
- 8pm–5am588 flights55.3%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.3% on time, against 81.6% 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 1,266 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to IAH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 81.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.3%, a wide gap of 26.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am81.6%
- 8–11am75.9%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm71.0%
- 5–8pm61.9%
- 8pm–5am55.3%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
June is the worst month at 58.1% on time, 28 points below February, the best at 86.4%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 523 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 130,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 21%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 130,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 130,339 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 81.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.43% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 224 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.4% on time across 5,800 flights, 6 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,800 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. February runs 86.4% on time and June 58.1%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 5,650 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to IAH questions
How often is DFW to IAH delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.3% of the 5,800 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to IAH?
United Airlines leads at 79.1% on time across 2,457 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 59.9%, a gap of 19 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 IAH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 81.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.3%, 26 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 June delays on DFW to IAH?
June is the weakest month at 58.1% on time, compared with 86.4% in February. Across the year that is 28 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DFW to IAH79.1%
- Envoy Air on DFW to IAH78.0%
- American Airlines on DFW to IAH59.9%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record86.1%
- United Airlines on-time record79.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to IAH and IAH 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.