Route reliability record
LAS→HOU
Las Vegas to Houston
- Flights
- 2,047
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,235 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,047 LAS to HOU flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly LAS to HOU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Saturday flights 82.0%, against 73.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,033 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.7% on time across 2,047 flights
These figures cover 2,047 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to HOU
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,047 | 73.7% | 47 min | 0.39% | C+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Las Vegas to Houston
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAS → IAHLas Vegas to Houston | United Airlines | 85.1% | 85.6% | 0.58% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2608 06:00 |
| 2. LAS → IAHLas Vegas to Houston | Spirit Airlines | 75.7% | 77.6% | 2.47% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. LAS → HOULas Vegas to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 73.4% | 73.7% | 0.39% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 37 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–8am538 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am317 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm319 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm354 flights56.8%
- 5pm–8pm342 flights57.6%
- 8pm–5am177 flights67.0%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 56.8% for the afternoon window. That is 37 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 538 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 65.4% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 86.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 193 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.7%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 25,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 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 25,203 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 9,592 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.9% 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 roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,235 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 80.7% on time across 2,045 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,047 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 HOU 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. January runs 86.1% on time and June 65.4%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,033 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to HOU questions
How often is LAS to HOU delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.3% of the 2,047 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAS to HOU compared with the rest of the country?
73.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAS to HOU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 56.8%, 37 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 LAS to HOU?
June is the weakest month at 65.4% on time, compared with 86.1% in January. Across the year that is 21 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
- HOU to LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- LAS to LAX, a related route78.8%
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.1%
- LAS to DEN, a related route77.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LAS to HOU and HOU to LAS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LAS to HOU’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.