Carrier route record
UAIAH→DFW
United Airlines · Houston to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,415
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAH to DFW 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,415 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 840 at 78.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on IAH to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,369 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.0%
Every carrier on IAH to DFW, 5,779 flights
These figures cover 2,415 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on IAH to DFW
United flew 2,415 of the 5,779 flights on IAH to DFW, about 42% of it. Its 75.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 79.2% to PSA at 57.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 53 | 79.2% | 58 min | 9.43% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 840 | 78.1% | 100 min | 3.10% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 2,415 | 75.7% | 74 min | 1.70% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,464 | 73.2% | 121 min | 3.65% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 57.1% | 428 min | 0.00% | D+ |
American Airlines cancels 3.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on IAH to DFW
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am324 flights82.5%
- 8am–11am215 flights79.0%
- 11am–2pm290 flights84.2%
- 2pm–5pm477 flights75.8%
- 5pm–8pm522 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am587 flights74.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 84.2% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 66.7%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 587 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAH to DFW through the year
June is the worst month at 59.6% on time, 26 points below February, the best at 85.7%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.2%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 43,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 16,000 minutes out of 43,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 42,659 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 224 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 runs 76.9% on time across 2,414 flights, within about 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 2,415 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on IAH to DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 85.7% on time and June 59.6%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,369 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to DFW, every carrier
- United on DFW to IAH, the return leg
- Envoy Air on IAH to DFW78.1%
- American Airlines on IAH to DFW73.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.