Route reliability record
IAH→OMA
Houston to Omaha
- Flights
- 810
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 781 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 810 IAH to OMA flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAH to OMA: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.5% of the time and Friday flights 82.6%, against 77.8% 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
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 808 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
77.4% on time across 687 flights
These figures cover 810 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 OMA
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 Airlinesthin sample | 123 | 80.5% | 70 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 687 | 77.4% | 57 min | 0.15% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAH to OMA
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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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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm158 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm156 flights86.5%
- 5pm–8pm126 flights74.6%
- 8pm–5am370 flights73.4%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 86.5% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 73.4%. 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 370 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH to OMA 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 OMA, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 86.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 73.4%, a wide gap of 13.1 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm82.3%
- 2–5pm86.5%
- 5–8pm74.6%
- 8pm–5am73.4%
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 32 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.
June is the worst month at 57.1% on time, 32 points below January, the best at 89.3%. 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 84 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 10,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 10,499 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,279 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.12%, 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 actually costs
7.7% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 781 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 87.3% on time across 809 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. 810 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 OMA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 810 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 77.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 808 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to OMA questions
How often is IAH to OMA delayed?
Roughly 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 22.2% of the 810 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IAH to OMA compared with the rest of the country?
77.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point 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 OMA?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 86.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.4%, 13 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 June delays on IAH to OMA?
June is the weakest month at 57.1% on time, compared with 89.3% in January. Across the year that is 32 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
- OMA to IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Eppley Airfield (OMA) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on IAH to OMA80.5%
- United Airlines on IAH to OMA77.4%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- DEN to OMA, a related route76.9%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.5%
- United Airlines on-time record77.4%
- 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 OMA and OMA 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.