Route reliability record
MAF→IAH
Midland to Houston
- Flights
- 717
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 429 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 717 MAF to IAH flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly MAF to IAH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.2% of the time and Saturday flights 88.5%, against 82.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 711 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
80.1% on time across 452 flights
These figures cover 717 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MAF to IAH
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 265 | 85.9% | 70 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 452 | 80.1% | 65 min | 0.88% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Midland 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MAF → HOUMidland to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 84.2% | 84.7% | 0.59% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. MAF → IAHMidland to Houston | United Airlines | 79.4% | 80.1% | 0.88% | 8am–11am, 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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am428 flights82.0%
- 8am–11am83 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm33 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm25 flights—
- 5pm–8pm148 flights81.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 69.7% on time against 89.2% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 428 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MAF 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 MAF to IAH, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.2% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 69.7%, a wide gap of 19.5 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am82.0%
- 8–11am89.2%
- 11am–2pm69.7%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm81.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
July is the worst month at 60.0% on time, 31 points below August, the best at 91.1%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.7%, a spread of 11 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 8,353 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 37%National Airspace System
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,414 of the 8,353 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,353 reported delay minutes.
37% 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 3,075 minutes out of 8,353, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.56%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
At 429 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 80.8% on time across 720 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. 717 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in IAH after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 717 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 82.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 711 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MAF to IAH questions
How often is MAF to IAH delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.7% of the 717 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MAF to IAH compared with the rest of the country?
82.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MAF to IAH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 69.7%, 20 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 July delays on MAF to IAH?
July is the weakest month at 60.0% on time, compared with 91.1% in August. Across the year that is 31 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 MAF — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MAF to IAH85.9%
- United Airlines on MAF to IAH80.1%
- MAF to DFW, a related route83.3%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- MAF to DEN, a related route84.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.9%
- United Airlines on-time record80.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MAF to IAH and IAH to MAF 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.