Route reliability record
LAX→HOU
Los Angeles to Houston
- Flights
- 1,194
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,390 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,194 LAX to HOU flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.
Best time to fly LAX to HOU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.5% of the time and Saturday flights 76.2%, against 69.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 79 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,191 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
69.4% on time across 1,194 flights
These figures cover 1,194 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 | 1,194 | 69.4% | 43 min | 0.17% | C+ |
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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. 4 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 | 88.4% | 88.4% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | United Airlines | 87.2% | 87.4% | 0.18% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 654 05:45 |
| 3. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 84.0% | 84.8% | 0.93% | 8am–11am, Mon | DL 1143 09:40 |
| 4. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | SkyWest Airlines | 80.8% | 81.2% | 0.49% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. LAX → HOULos Angeles to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 69.3% | 69.4% | 0.17% | 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 54 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am272 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am179 flights75.7%
- 11am–2pm223 flights63.7%
- 2pm–5pm129 flights37.2%
- 5pm–8pm107 flights41.1%
- 8pm–5am284 flights73.9%
Scale runs 30% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.5% of the time, against 37.2% for the afternoon window. That is 54 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 284 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to HOU 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 LAX to HOU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 37.2%, a wide gap of 54.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.5%
- 8–11am75.7%
- 11am–2pm63.7%
- 2–5pm37.2%
- 5–8pm41.1%
- 8pm–5am73.9%
best all US flightsScale 30% to 95%.
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 116 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 61.2%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 to one. The split is drawn from 15,535 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,361 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.17%, 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
5.0% 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 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.6% on time across 1,188 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,194 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. 1,191 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to HOU questions
How often is LAX to HOU delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.6% of the 1,194 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAX to HOU compared with the rest of the country?
69.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 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 91.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 37.2%, 54 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 route60.1%
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record69.4%
- 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. 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.