Carrier route record
MQIAH→ORD
Envoy Air · Houston to Chicago
- Flights
- 359
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 6%
- Carriers
- 8
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.
Envoy on IAH to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 359 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 4,007 at 78.2% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Envoy on IAH to ORD runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 48 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on IAH to ORD, 6,080 flights
These figures cover 359 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Envoy against every carrier on IAH to ORD
Envoy flew 359 of the 6,080 flights on IAH to ORD, about 6% of it. Its 72.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of eight carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.2% to PSA at 50.0%. Five of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 67.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 798 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 4,007 | 78.2% | 70 min | 0.60% | B+ |
| Envoy Air (this page)thin sample | 359 | 72.8% | 62 min | 1.11% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 357 | 71.7% | 80 min | 3.64% | C− |
| American Airlines | 798 | 67.1% | 122 min | 3.51% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 305 | 66.0% | 70 min | 4.59% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 248 | 61.8% | 130 min | 2.82% | D |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 38 min | 0.00% | F+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 156 min | 0.00% | F+ |
American Airlines cancels 3.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Departure window
When Envoy runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am134 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm73 flights74.3%
- 2pm–5pm19 flights—
- 5pm–8pm132 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 81.2% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 134 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Envoy on IAH to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202555 flights74.5%
- Oct–Dec 202547 flights72.3%
- Jan–Mar 2026167 flights77.3%
- Apr–Jun 202690 flights63.6%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.8% on time across 359 flights.
Envoy on IAH to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 77.3% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 63.6%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 90 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.2%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Envoy runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 5,988 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% 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 5,988 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 5,988 reported delay minutes.
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,063 minutes out of 5,988, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.56%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.8% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 925 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 runs 74.4% on time across 358 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 359 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 Envoy on IAH to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 359 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 72.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 353 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to ORD, every carrier
- Envoy on ORD to IAH, the return leg
- United Airlines on IAH to ORD78.2%
- Republic Airways on IAH to ORD71.7%
- American Airlines on IAH to ORD67.1%
- Spirit Airlines on IAH to ORD66.0%
- Frontier Airlines on IAH to ORD61.8%
- Envoy Air network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.