Route reliability record
IAH→MSP
Houston to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,939
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,034 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,939 IAH to MSP flights, of which United Airlines flew 638 at 79.8% on time.
Best time to fly IAH to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.7%, against 79.2% 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
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,920 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
79.8% on time across 638 flights
These figures cover 1,939 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAH to MSP
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 638 | 79.8% | 51 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,278 | 79.1% | 100 min | 1.10% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 65.2% | 111 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 79.8%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on IAH to MSP
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston to Minneapolis
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → MSPHouston to Minneapolis | United Airlines | 79.3% | 79.8% | 0.63% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. IAH → MSPHouston to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 78.2% | 79.1% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1050 06:30 |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am392 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am359 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm170 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm415 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm308 flights72.1%
- 8pm–5am295 flights72.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 71.4% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 415 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH to MSP 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 MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 71.4%, a wide gap of 17.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.9%
- 8–11am88.9%
- 11am–2pm78.9%
- 2–5pm71.4%
- 5–8pm72.1%
- 8pm–5am72.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
December is the weak month at 68.1% on time, against 87.5% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 208 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 33,931 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.7% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,034 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.2% on time across 1,940 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,939 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.5% on time and December 68.1%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,920 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to MSP questions
How often is IAH to MSP 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 20.8% of the 1,939 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on IAH to MSP?
United Airlines leads at 79.8% on time across 638 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 79.1%, a gap of half a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAH to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 71.4%, 18 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 December delays on IAH to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 68.1% on time, compared with 87.5% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- MSP to IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- United Airlines on IAH to MSP79.8%
- Delta Air Lines on IAH to MSP79.1%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- United Airlines on-time record79.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record65.2%
- 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 MSP and MSP 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.