Carrier route record
UAMAF→IAH
United Airlines · Midland to Houston
- Flights
- 457
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 50%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MAF to IAH lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 457 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's MAF to IAH record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 452 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.09%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.6%
Every carrier on MAF to IAH, 907 flights
These figures cover 457 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
United against every carrier on MAF to IAH
United flew 457 of the 907 flights on MAF to IAH, most of the route. Its 81.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 83.5% to United at 81.6%.
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 Airlines | 450 | 83.5% | 85 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 457 | 81.6% | 70 min | 1.09% | B |
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 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–8am344 flights79.9%
- 8am–11am54 flights92.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm4 flights—
- 5pm–8pm55 flights81.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 79.9% for the early window. That is 13 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 344 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MAF to IAH through the year
June is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 25 points below August, the best at 92.1%. 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 58 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 72.1%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 5,779 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%Carrier
- 35%National Airspace System
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 2,828 of the 5,779 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,779 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 2,031 minutes out of 5,779, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.1% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.6% on time across 457 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 457 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on MAF to IAH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 457 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 81.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 452 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MAF to IAH, every carrier
- United on IAH to MAF, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on MAF to IAH83.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.