Carrier route record
UAMEM→IAH
United Airlines · Memphis to Houston
- Flights
- 352
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MEM to IAH earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 352 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's MEM to IAH record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 83 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.9%
Every carrier on MEM to IAH, 1,075 flights
These figures cover 352 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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
United against every carrier on MEM to IAH
United flew 352 of the 1,075 flights on MEM to IAH, about 33% of it. Its 85.6% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.6% to SkyWest at 78.6%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 352 | 85.6% | 50 min | 1.42% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 723 | 78.6% | 86 min | 0.83% | B+ |
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Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 352 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split United's MEM to IAH record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 85.6% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
United on MEM to IAH through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights80.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights80.2%
- Apr–Jun 202694 flights87.1%
- Jul–Sep 202647 flights95.7%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 85.6% on time across 352 flights.
United on MEM to IAH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 80.2%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 70 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 82.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on MEM to IAH runs when it is late
United on MEM to IAH often beats the schedule: 126 of 347 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 26 of the 50 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 10 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early126 flights36.3%
- Within 15 min171 flights49.3%
- 15–29 min late26 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late14 flights4.0%
- 1–2 hours late5 flights1.4%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 347 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 29 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. In the other direction, 29 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at IAH.
The worst days
Worst days for United on MEM to IAH
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 February 2026, 2 hours 58 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 February 2026 | 2 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 June 2026 | 2 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 December 2025 | 2 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 May 2026 | 2 hours 34 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 25 November 2025 | 2 hours 22 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 61% of the 2,477 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%National Airspace System
- 37%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
61% 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 1,514 minutes out of 2,477, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,477 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 916 of the 2,477 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.42% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.9% 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 468 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.4% on time across 356 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 352 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 MEM to IAH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 352 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 85.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 347 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MEM to IAH, every carrier
- United on IAH to MEM, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on MEM to IAH78.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.