Route reliability record
DTW→IAH
Detroit to Houston
- Flights
- 2,083
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,075 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, about a point 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 2,083 DTW to IAH flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to IAH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Thursday flights 81.1%, against 78.5% 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
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,060 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.96%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.6% on time across 1,327 flights
These figures cover 2,083 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 DTW 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 | 275 | 88.0% | 55 min | 0.36% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 85.7% | 19 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,327 | 78.6% | 56 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 292 | 75.8% | 84 min | 2.40% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 67.2% | 71 min | 1.10% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW 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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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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am242 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am657 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm355 flights83.2%
- 2pm–5pm315 flights71.5%
- 5pm–8pm81 flights72.5%
- 8pm–5am433 flights71.1%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 71.1% for the overnight window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 657 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW 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 DTW to IAH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 71.1%, a wide gap of 15.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am81.9%
- 11am–2pm83.2%
- 2–5pm71.5%
- 5–8pm72.5%
- 8pm–5am71.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
December is the weak month at 61.4% on time, against 94.5% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 203 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 76.2%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 27,485 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 1,075 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 78.9% on time across 2,088 flights, within half 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 2,083 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 94.5% on time and December 61.4%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,060 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to IAH questions
How often is DTW 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 21.5% of the 2,083 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DTW to IAH compared with the rest of the country?
78.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to IAH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.1%, 16 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 December delays on DTW to IAH?
December is the weakest month at 61.4% on time, compared with 94.5% in September. Across the year that is 33 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 DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DTW to IAH88.0%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to IAH78.6%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to IAH75.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to IAH67.2%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- United Airlines on-time record88.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.6%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. DTW to IAH and IAH to DTW 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.