Route reliability record
MSP→IAH
Minneapolis to Houston
- Flights
- 1,835
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,034 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,835 MSP to IAH flights, of which United Airlines flew 540 at 88.4% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to IAH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.8%, against 80.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
80.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,804 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
88.4% on time across 540 flights
These figures cover 1,835 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
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 88.4% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 77.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,272 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 540 | 88.4% | 61 min | 1.11% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,272 | 77.8% | 60 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 77.3% | 110 min | 0.00% | B+ |
United leads Delta by 11 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.
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 | 87.4% | 88.4% | 1.11% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. MSP → IAHMinneapolis to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 77.1% | 77.8% | 0.94% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2656 07:00 |
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 19 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am524 flights85.6%
- 8am–11am221 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm328 flights84.2%
- 2pm–5pm358 flights76.4%
- 5pm–8pm105 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am299 flights72.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.4% of the time, against 70.2% for the evening window. That is 19 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 524 flights scheduled in it.
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. May was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 76.1%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 21,000 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
- 25%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%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 10,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 20,989 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.71%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.2% 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 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 78.6% on time across 1,835 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,835 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. 1,804 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 five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.1% of the 1,835 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to IAH?
United Airlines leads at 88.4% on time across 540 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 77.8%, a gap of 11 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 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.2%, 19 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 IAH88.4%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to IAH77.8%
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- ORD to IAH, a related route75.0%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- United Airlines on-time record88.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.3%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.
Embed MSP to IAH’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.