Route reliability record
IAH→MAF
Houston to Midland
- Flights
- 720
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 429 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 720 IAH to MAF flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAH to MAF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.9%, against 80.8% 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
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 715 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
79.4% on time across 452 flights
These figures cover 720 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAH to MAF
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 | 268 | 83.2% | 65 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 452 | 79.4% | 58 min | 0.66% | B+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston to Midland
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. HOU → MAFHouston to Midland | Southwest Airlines | 81.9% | 82.3% | 0.44% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. IAH → MAFHouston to Midland | United Airlines | 78.9% | 79.4% | 0.66% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am80 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am33 flights72.7%
- 11am–2pm25 flights—
- 2pm–5pm166 flights86.1%
- 5pm–8pm3 flights—
- 8pm–5am413 flights77.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.9% of the time, against 72.7% for the morning window. That is 17 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 413 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH to MAF 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 MAF, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.9% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 72.7%, a wide gap of 17.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.9%
- 8–11am72.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm86.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am77.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 35 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.
June is the worst month at 54.8% on time, 35 points below August, the best at 89.7%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 8,289 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,289 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 8,289 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,571 of the 8,289 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.42%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.6% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 429 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 82.3% on time across 717 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 720 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 MAF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 720 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 80.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 715 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to MAF questions
How often is IAH to MAF delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.2% of the 720 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IAH to MAF compared with the rest of the country?
80.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAH to MAF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 72.7%, 17 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 June delays on IAH to MAF?
June is the weakest month at 54.8% on time, compared with 89.7% in August. Across the year that is 35 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
- MAF to IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on IAH to MAF83.2%
- United Airlines on IAH to MAF79.4%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- DFW to MAF, a related route81.9%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record83.2%
- United Airlines on-time record79.4%
- 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. IAH to MAF and MAF 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.