Route reliability record
MFE→IAH
McAllen to Houston
- Flights
- 737
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 316 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 2.2 hours on average. That rests on 737 MFE to IAH flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MFE to IAH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.5%, against 80.7% 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
80.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 731 completed flights
Avg delay
132 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
84.5% on time across 409 flights
These figures cover 737 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 MFE 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 409 | 84.5% | 79 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 328 | 76.0% | 175 min | 0.91% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MFE 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 McAllen 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. MFE → IAHMcAllen to Houston | United Airlines | 84.1% | 84.5% | 0.49% | 5pm–8pm, Fri | UA 678 07:00 |
| 2. HRL → HOUHarlingen to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 80.4% | 80.5% | 0.17% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am451 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am8 flights—
- 11am–2pm2 flights—
- 2pm–5pm74 flights81.1%
- 5pm–8pm202 flights67.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.0% of the time, against 67.7% for the evening window. That is 18 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 451 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MFE 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 MFE to IAH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.7%, a wide gap of 18.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.0%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm81.1%
- 5–8pm67.7%
- 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 33 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.
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 62.2%. February is the strongest month at 95.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 33 points. November was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 76.0%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 18,612 reported delay minutes.
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 86.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, 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
8.5% 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 about 2.2 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 316 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 runs 78.4% on time across 738 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. 737 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. 737 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 80.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 731 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MFE to IAH questions
How often is MFE to IAH delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.3% of the 737 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.2 hours on average.
How reliable is MFE to IAH compared with the rest of the country?
80.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MFE to IAH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.7%, 18 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 MFE to IAH?
May is the weakest month at 62.2% on time, compared with 95.3% in February. Across the year that is 33 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 MFE — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MFE to IAH84.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on MFE to IAH76.0%
- MFE to DFW, a related route80.5%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- MFE to AUS, a related route87.1%
- United Airlines on-time record84.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.0%
- 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. MFE to IAH and IAH to MFE 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.