Carrier route record
UAIAH→MSP
United Airlines · Houston to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 540
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAH to MSP lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 540 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on IAH to MSP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 535 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.6%
Every carrier on IAH to MSP, 1,835 flights
These figures cover 540 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on IAH to MSP
United flew 540 of the 1,835 flights on IAH to MSP, about 29% of it. Its 78.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 78.9% to SkyWest at 65.2%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,272 | 78.9% | 98 min | 1.02% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 540 | 78.3% | 55 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 65.2% | 111 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 22 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–8am26 flights—
- 8am–11am174 flights91.4%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm42 flights69.0%
- 5pm–8pm3 flights—
- 8pm–5am294 flights70.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 69.0% for the afternoon window. That is 22 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 294 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAH to MSP through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 91.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 64 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.6%. 17 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 48% of the 6,319 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
48% 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 6,319 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 6,319 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.4% on time across 540 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 540 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 MSP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 540 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 535 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to MSP, every carrier
- United on MSP to IAH, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on IAH to MSP78.9%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.