Carrier route record
UAIAH→MSP
United Airlines · Houston to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 638
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAH to MSP 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 roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 638 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 634 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.2%
Every carrier on IAH to MSP, 1,939 flights
These figures cover 638 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 MSP
United flew 638 of the 1,939 flights on IAH to MSP, about 33% of it. Its 79.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.8% 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 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+ |
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.
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am27 flights—
- 8am–11am213 flights92.0%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm99 flights68.7%
- 5pm–8pm3 flights—
- 8pm–5am295 flights72.9%
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 92.0% of the time, against 68.7% for the afternoon window. That is 23 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 295 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. July was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.5%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on IAH to MSP runs when it is late
United on IAH to MSP often beats the schedule: 173 of 634 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 128 late arrivals split 48 under half an hour, 42 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 38 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early173 flights27.3%
- Within 15 min333 flights52.5%
- 15–29 min late48 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late42 flights6.6%
- 1–2 hours late32 flights5.0%
- 2+ hours late6 flights0.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 634 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
28 of 130 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 26 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on IAH to MSP
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 August 2026, 3 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 August 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 June 2026 | 2 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 November 2025 | 2 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 August 2026 | 2 hours 25 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 December 2025 | 2 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 6,565 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,565 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 6,565 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 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, 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
6.0% 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 roughly 50 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.4% on time across 639 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 638 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. 638 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 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 634 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 MSP79.1%
- 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 7.05 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.