Route reliability record
LGA→IAH
New York to Houston
- Flights
- 3,997
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,416 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 3,997 LGA to IAH flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,376 at 77.4% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to IAH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.4%, against 76.2% 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
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,867 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
77.4% on time across 2,376 flights
These figures cover 3,997 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to IAH
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 32 | 80.6% | 38 min | 3.12% | B− |
| United Airlines | 2,376 | 77.4% | 88 min | 1.77% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 75.8% | 67 min | 4.55% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,347 | 74.0% | 87 min | 4.53% | C− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.5% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to IAH
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York 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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → IAHNewark to Houston | United Airlines | 79.5% | 80.8% | 1.60% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 492 06:00 |
| 2. LGA → IAHNew York to Houston | United Airlines | 76.0% | 77.4% | 1.77% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2371 07:45 |
| 3. LGA → IAHNew York to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 70.6% | 74.0% | 4.53% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 2099 10:10 |
| 4. LGA → HOUNew York to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 69.1% | 71.7% | 3.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 29 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am920 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am768 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm669 flights77.9%
- 2pm–5pm757 flights69.6%
- 5pm–8pm601 flights60.8%
- 8pm–5am282 flights66.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.8% on time, against 89.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 920 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to IAH 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 LGA to IAH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.8%, a wide gap of 29.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.8%
- 8–11am80.8%
- 11am–2pm77.9%
- 2–5pm69.6%
- 5–8pm60.8%
- 8pm–5am66.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 86.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 376 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%, a spread of 10 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 79,000 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.8% on time here. The split is drawn from 78,805 reported delay minutes.
No single cause dominates. carrier at 33%, late-arriving aircraft at 33% and national airspace system at 24% split the 79,000 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.
Cancellations run at 2.88%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,416 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 72.8% on time across 3,991 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,997 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 IAH after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.88% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,867 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to IAH questions
How often is LGA to IAH 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 23.8% of the 3,997 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to IAH?
United Airlines leads at 77.4% on time across 2,376 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 74.0%, a gap of 3 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to IAH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.8%, 29 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 May delays on LGA to IAH?
May is the weakest month at 69.6% on time, compared with 86.1% in September. Across the year that is 17 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
- IAH to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LGA to IAH77.4%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to IAH75.8%
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to IAH74.0%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.6%
- United Airlines on-time record77.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record75.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to IAH and IAH to LGA 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.