Route reliability record
HOU→MCI
Houston to Kansas City
- Flights
- 1,002
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 666 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, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,002 HOU to MCI flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly HOU to MCI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.7%, against 75.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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 993 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.9% on time across 1,002 flights
These figures cover 1,002 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HOU to MCI
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 | 1,002 | 75.9% | 50 min | 0.50% | B+ |
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am32 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am311 flights92.2%
- 11am–2pm80 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm202 flights64.4%
- 5pm–8pm41 flights80.0%
- 8pm–5am336 flights66.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.5% of the time, against 64.4% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 336 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 61.5%. January is the strongest month at 91.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 30 points. March was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.9%. 11 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 62% of the 12,000 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.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
62% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 62 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 11,983 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 93.5% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.7% 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 about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 666 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.9% on time across 1,001 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,002 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 MCI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,002 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 75.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 993 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to MCI questions
How often is HOU to MCI 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 1,002 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is HOU to MCI compared with the rest of the country?
75.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HOU to MCI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 64.4%, 29 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 March delays on HOU to MCI?
March is the weakest month at 61.5% on time, compared with 91.3% in January. Across the year that is 30 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
- MCI to HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- HOU to DAL, a related route80.9%
- DEN to MCI, a related route75.5%
- HOU to ATL, a related route79.8%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. HOU to MCI and MCI 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.