Route reliability record
IAH→MEM
Houston to Memphis
- Flights
- 1,075
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 468 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 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 1,075 IAH to MEM flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAH to MEM: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.7%, against 80.6% 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
80.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,064 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
84.7% on time across 719 flights
These figures cover 1,075 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 MEM
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 | 719 | 84.7% | 68 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 356 | 72.4% | 49 min | 1.12% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAH to MEM
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.
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 Memphis
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. IAH → MEMHouston to Memphis | SkyWest Airlines | 83.9% | 84.7% | 0.97% | 5am–8am, Wed | OO 5758 11:55 |
| 2. HOU → MEMHouston to Memphis | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 74.2% | 1.19% | 11am–2pm, 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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am342 flights86.1%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm310 flights85.4%
- 2pm–5pm62 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm14 flights—
- 8pm–5am346 flights72.8%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.1% of the time, against 72.1% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 346 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH to MEM 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 MEM, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.1%, a wide gap of 14.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.1%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm85.4%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am72.8%
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 20 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.1%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 12,189 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,673 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.02% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% 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 468 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 80.9% on time across 1,075 flights, within half a point 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. 1,075 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 MEM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,075 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 80.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,064 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to MEM questions
How often is IAH to MEM 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 19.4% of the 1,075 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IAH to MEM compared with the rest of the country?
80.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 MEM?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 14 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 April delays on IAH to MEM?
April is the weakest month at 72.6% on time, compared with 92.1% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- MEM to IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on IAH to MEM84.7%
- United Airlines on IAH to MEM72.4%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- ATL to MEM, a related route81.1%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.7%
- United Airlines on-time record72.4%
- 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 MEM and MEM 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.