Carrier route record
UAIAH→MFE
United Airlines · Houston to McAllen
- Flights
- 409
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 55%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAH to MFE 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 409 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on IAH to MFE from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 406 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.4%
Every carrier on IAH to MFE, 738 flights
These figures cover 409 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
United against every carrier on IAH to MFE
United flew 409 of the 738 flights on IAH to MFE, most of the route. Its 80.5% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.5% to SkyWest at 75.7%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 409 | 80.5% | 57 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 329 | 75.7% | 118 min | 0.91% | B+ |
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Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 409 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm36 flights88.9%
- 5pm–8pm34 flights85.3%
- 8pm–5am339 flights79.2%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 88.9% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 79.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 339 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAH to MFE through the year
June is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 25 points below January, the best at 91.4%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 59 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on IAH to MFE runs when it is late
The 79 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early98 flights24.1%
- Within 15 min229 flights56.4%
- 15–29 min late25 flights6.2%
- 30–59 min late25 flights6.2%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights4.7%
- 2+ hours late10 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 406 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
19 of 92 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. Only 6 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on IAH to MFE
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 November 2025, 3 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across November, March, May and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 November 2025 | 3 hours 21 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 16 March 2026 | 2 hours 38 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 May 2026 | 2 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 March 2026 | 2 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 July 2026 | 2 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 4,518 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%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 4,518 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 4,518 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,280 of the 4,518 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, 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 costs
7.1% 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 316 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.5% on time across 409 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. 409 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 MFE
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 409 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 80.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 406 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to MFE, every carrier
- United on MFE to IAH, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on IAH to MFE75.7%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.