Route reliability record
IAH→LGA
Houston to New York
- Flights
- 3,991
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,416 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,991 IAH to LGA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,347 at 77.5% on time.
Best time to fly IAH to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Saturday flights 78.9%, against 72.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,839 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.5% on time across 1,347 flights
These figures cover 3,991 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAH to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 77.5% of the time; United Airlines manages 71.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,376 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 32 | 83.9% | 40 min | 3.12% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,347 | 77.5% | 95 min | 4.75% | B− |
| United Airlines | 2,376 | 71.3% | 77 min | 1.47% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 236 | 60.3% | 80 min | 7.20% | D− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.8% 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
Flights on IAH to LGA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston to New York
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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → EWRHouston to Newark | United Airlines | 74.0% | 75.2% | 1.57% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1797 06:00 |
| 2. IAH → LGAHouston to New York | Delta Air Lines | 73.8% | 77.5% | 4.75% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1417 07:00 |
| 3. IAH → LGAHouston to New York | United Airlines | 70.3% | 71.3% | 1.47% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 2181 12:00 |
| 4. HOU → LGAHouston to New York | Southwest Airlines | 60.8% | 62.5% | 2.65% | 5am–8am, 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 21 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am662 flights85.9%
- 8am–11am844 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm412 flights70.3%
- 2pm–5pm1,008 flights65.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,065 flights64.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.5% on time, against 85.9% for the 5am–8am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,065 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH to LGA 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 IAH to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.5%, a wide gap of 21.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.9%
- 8–11am82.6%
- 11am–2pm70.3%
- 2–5pm65.6%
- 5–8pm64.5%
- 8pm–5am—
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 34 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 54.3%. January is the strongest month at 87.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 34 points. October was the busiest month here, with 376 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 49% of the 86,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% 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 42,000 minutes out of 86,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 85,624 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.93%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,416 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.2% on time across 3,997 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,991 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.93% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,839 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to LGA questions
How often is IAH to LGA delayed?
Roughly 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 27.2% of the 3,991 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on IAH to LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 77.5% on time across 1,347 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 71.3%, a gap of 6 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAH to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.5%, 21 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 IAH to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 54.3% on time, compared with 87.9% in January. Across the year that is 34 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
- LGA to IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on IAH to LGA77.5%
- United Airlines on IAH to LGA71.3%
- Spirit Airlines on IAH to LGA60.3%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record83.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.5%
- United Airlines on-time record71.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. IAH to LGA and LGA to IAH 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.