Route reliability record
HOU→MEM
Houston to Memphis
- Flights
- 840
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 484 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 840 HOU to MEM flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly HOU to MEM: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.1% of the time and Saturday flights 76.4%, against 74.2% 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
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 829 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.2% on time across 840 flights
These figures cover 840 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HOU to MEM
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 | 840 | 74.2% | 44 min | 1.19% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston to Memphis
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 → MEMHouston to Memphis | SkyWest Airlines | 83.9% | 84.7% | 0.97% | 5am–8am, Wed | OO 5758 11:55 |
| 2. HOU → MEMHouston to Memphis | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 74.2% | 1.19% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am210 flights85.9%
- 11am–2pm116 flights93.1%
- 2pm–5pm173 flights64.5%
- 5pm–8pm205 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am136 flights63.7%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.7% on time, against 93.1% for the 11am–2pm 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 210 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HOU to MEM 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 MEM, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 93.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.7%, a wide gap of 29.4 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am85.9%
- 11am–2pm93.1%
- 2–5pm64.5%
- 5–8pm66.7%
- 8pm–5am63.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 87.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 81 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.5%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 9,510 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,510 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 9,510 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.2% 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 484 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.1% on time across 840 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 840 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 MEM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 840 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 74.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 829 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to MEM questions
How often is HOU to MEM 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 25.8% of the 840 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is HOU to MEM compared with the rest of the country?
74.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HOU to MEM?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.7%, 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 MEM?
March is the weakest month at 61.7% on time, compared with 87.0% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- MEM to HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- ATL to MEM, a related route81.1%
- HOU to ATL, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.2%
- 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 MEM and MEM 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.