Route reliability record
MSP→IAH
Minneapolis to Houston
- Flights
- 1,940
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,034 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 1,940 MSP to IAH flights, of which United Airlines flew 639 at 87.4% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to IAH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.7%, against 82.2% 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 49 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,913 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
87.4% on time across 639 flights
These figures cover 1,940 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 MSP to IAH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 87.4% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 79.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,278 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 639 | 87.4% | 59 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,278 | 79.7% | 62 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 77.3% | 110 min | 0.00% | B+ |
United leads Delta by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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 Minneapolis to Houston
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → IAHMinneapolis to Houston | United Airlines | 86.7% | 87.4% | 0.78% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. MSP → IAHMinneapolis to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 79.0% | 79.7% | 0.94% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2656 07:05 |
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 16 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am551 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am255 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm328 flights84.9%
- 2pm–5pm345 flights79.1%
- 5pm–8pm224 flights73.1%
- 8pm–5am237 flights73.7%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 73.1% for the evening window. That is 16 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 551 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to IAH, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.1%, a wide gap of 15.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am88.9%
- 11am–2pm84.9%
- 2–5pm79.1%
- 5–8pm73.1%
- 8pm–5am73.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
December is the weak month at 65.2% on time, against 89.8% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 208 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.8%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,947 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,119 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, 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
6.6% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,034 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 79.2% on time across 1,939 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 1,940 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.8% on time and December 65.2%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,913 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to IAH questions
How often is MSP 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 17.8% of the 1,940 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to IAH?
United Airlines leads at 87.4% on time across 639 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 79.7%, a gap of 8 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 MSP to IAH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.1%, 16 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 December delays on MSP to IAH?
December is the weakest month at 65.2% on time, compared with 89.8% in September. Across the year that is 25 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MSP to IAH87.4%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to IAH79.7%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- United Airlines on-time record87.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.3%
- 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. MSP to IAH and IAH to MSP 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.