Route reliability record
HOU→HRL
Houston to Harlingen
- Flights
- 1,165
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 277 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,165 HOU to HRL flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly HOU to HRL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.3%, against 75.9% 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
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,163 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.9% on time across 1,165 flights
These figures cover 1,165 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 HOU to HRL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,165 | 75.9% | 44 min | 0.17% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston to Harlingen
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → MFEHouston to McAllen | United Airlines | 80.1% | 80.5% | 0.49% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | — |
| 2. HOU → HRLHouston to Harlingen | Southwest Airlines | 75.8% | 75.9% | 0.17% | 8am–11am, 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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am21 flights—
- 8am–11am285 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm104 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm300 flights75.3%
- 5pm–8pm93 flights67.7%
- 8pm–5am362 flights62.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.5% on time, against 90.9% for the 8am–11am 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HOU to HRL 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 HOU to HRL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 62.5%, a wide gap of 28.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.9%
- 11am–2pm87.5%
- 2–5pm75.3%
- 5–8pm67.7%
- 8pm–5am62.5%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 60.0% on time, 29 points below September, the best at 89.3%. 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 119 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 70.2%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 56 to one. The split is drawn from 12,407 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,700 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.17%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% 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 about 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 277 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.5% on time across 1,165 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,165 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 HRL 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 89.3% on time and June 60.0%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,163 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to HRL questions
How often is HOU to HRL delayed?
About 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 24.1% of the 1,165 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is HOU to HRL compared with the rest of the country?
75.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HOU to HRL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.5%, 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 June delays on HOU to HRL?
June is the weakest month at 60.0% on time, compared with 89.3% in September. Across the year that is 29 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
- HRL to HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- DFW to HRL, a related route85.4%
- HOU to ATL, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.9%
- 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. HOU to HRL and HRL to HOU 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.