Route reliability record
HOU→JAN
Houston to Jackson
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 359 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 about 45 minutes on average. That rests on 729 HOU to JAN flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly HOU to JAN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.6%, against 78.8% 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
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 726 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.8% on time across 729 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 JAN
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 | 729 | 78.8% | 45 min | 0.41% | B+ |
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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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am253 flights90.4%
- 11am–2pm111 flights90.1%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm228 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am136 flights58.1%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.1% on time, against 90.4% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 253 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HOU to JAN 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 JAN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.1%, a wide gap of 32.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.4%
- 11am–2pm90.1%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm72.7%
- 8pm–5am58.1%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 66.7% on time, 28 points below January, the best at 95.0%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.6%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 6,988 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,988 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 6,988 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,911 of the 6,988 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.41%, 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
5.1% 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 359 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 83.8% on time across 729 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in JAN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 729 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 78.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 726 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to JAN questions
How often is HOU to JAN 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 21.2% of the 729 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is HOU to JAN compared with the rest of the country?
78.8% 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 HOU to JAN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.1%, 32 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 JAN?
June is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 95.0% in January. 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
- JAN to HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- ATL to JAN, a related route83.9%
- HOU to ATL, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.8%
- 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 JAN and JAN 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.