Carrier route record
UAIAH→MAF
United Airlines · Houston to Midland
- Flights
- 457
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 50%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAH to MAF lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 457 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on IAH to MAF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 451 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.88%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.5%
Every carrier on IAH to MAF, 908 flights
These figures cover 457 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 MAF
United flew 457 of the 908 flights on IAH to MAF, most of the route. Its 77.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 79.5% to United at 77.6%.
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 Airlines | 451 | 79.5% | 73 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 457 | 77.6% | 63 min | 0.88% | B+ |
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 21 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–8am53 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm4 flights—
- 2pm–5pm55 flights89.1%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am343 flights72.8%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.2% of the time, against 72.8% for the overnight window. That is 21 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 343 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAH to MAF through the year
June is the worst month at 53.3% on time, 35 points below January, the best at 88.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 58 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%. 8 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 6,329 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 6,329 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 6,329 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,159 of the 6,329 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.6% on time across 457 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. 457 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on IAH to MAF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 457 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 77.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 451 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.