Route reliability record
LAX→HOU
Los Angeles to Houston
- Flights
- 1,193
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,390 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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 40 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,193 LAX to HOU flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
Best time to fly LAX to HOU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.3% of the time and Saturday flights 79.7%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,188 completed flights
Avg delay
40 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.25%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.1% on time across 1,193 flights
These figures cover 1,193 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 LAX 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 | 1,193 | 73.1% | 40 min | 0.25% | C+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SNA → IAHSanta Ana to Houston | United Airlines | 87.8% | 87.9% | 0.09% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | United Airlines | 86.9% | 87.1% | 0.26% | 5am–8am, Thu | UA 491 00:55 |
| 3. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 85.2% | 86.1% | 1.09% | 8am–11am, Thu | DL 1143 08:45 |
| 4. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | SkyWest Airlines | 81.6% | 82.0% | 0.49% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | Spirit Airlines | 76.5% | 77.5% | 1.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 45 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–8am279 flights94.3%
- 8am–11am162 flights74.4%
- 11am–2pm241 flights66.7%
- 2pm–5pm136 flights50.7%
- 5pm–8pm90 flights49.4%
- 8pm–5am285 flights75.4%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.4% on time, against 94.3% for the 5am–8am 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 285 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 45 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.9% 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 115 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.9%. 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 13,000 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
- 35%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 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 12,796 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 4,514 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.25%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 1,390 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 75.0% on time across 1,194 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,193 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. September runs 89.9% on time and March 44.9%, a swing of 45 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,188 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to HOU questions
How often is LAX 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 26.9% of the 1,193 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 40 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAX to HOU compared with the rest of the country?
73.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to HOU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 49.4%, 45 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 March delays on LAX to HOU?
March is the weakest month at 44.9% on time, compared with 89.9% in September. Across the year that is 45 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- LAX to SFO, a related route64.8%
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.1%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.1%
- 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. LAX to HOU and HOU to LAX 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.