Carrier route record
UAIAH→LGA
United Airlines · Houston to New York
- Flights
- 2,382
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAH to LGA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,382 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on IAH to LGA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 62 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,326 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.6%
Every carrier on IAH to LGA, 4,053 flights
These figures cover 2,382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% 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 LGA
United flew 2,382 of the 4,053 flights on IAH to LGA, most of the route. Its 71.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 83.9% to Spirit at 60.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 32 | 83.9% | 40 min | 3.12% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,342 | 77.2% | 95 min | 3.95% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 2,382 | 71.4% | 75 min | 1.64% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 297 | 60.6% | 80 min | 6.06% | D− |
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 23 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–8am303 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am583 flights83.4%
- 11am–2pm272 flights66.0%
- 2pm–5pm616 flights63.2%
- 5pm–8pm608 flights63.1%
- 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: 63.1% on time, against 86.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 616 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAH to LGA through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 47.9%. January is the strongest month at 90.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 43 points. July was the busiest month here, with 233 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.9%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 57% of the 50,000 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.
- 57%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
57% 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 28,000 minutes out of 50,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 49,733 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.71%.
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. 12.6% 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.
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. 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 77.1% on time across 2,382 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,382 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 LGA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 90.9% on time and March 47.9%, a swing of 43 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,326 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to LGA, every carrier
- United on LGA to IAH, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on IAH to LGA77.2%
- Spirit Airlines on IAH to LGA60.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.