Route reliability record
MSY→IAH
New Orleans to Houston
- Flights
- 2,910
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 305 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 6 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,910 MSY to IAH flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSY to IAH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.6%, against 83.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,898 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
83.2% on time across 2,740 flights
These figures cover 2,910 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 MSY 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 87.8% | 229 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 2,740 | 83.2% | 75 min | 0.36% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 102 | 82.4% | 73 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 27 | 80.8% | 305 min | 3.70% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSY 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 New Orleans 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. MSY → IAHNew Orleans to Houston | United Airlines | 82.9% | 83.2% | 0.36% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 2744 05:15 |
| 2. MSY → HOUNew Orleans to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 75.4% | 75.9% | 0.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am723 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am361 flights90.6%
- 11am–2pm344 flights84.8%
- 2pm–5pm752 flights81.4%
- 5pm–8pm635 flights75.8%
- 8pm–5am95 flights86.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 75.8% for the evening window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 752 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSY 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 MSY to IAH, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 75.8%, a wide gap of 14.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am86.8%
- 8–11am90.6%
- 11am–2pm84.8%
- 2–5pm81.4%
- 5–8pm75.8%
- 8pm–5am86.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 71.8%. January is the strongest month at 91.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. October was the busiest month here, with 286 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.7%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 38,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 38,376 reported delay minutes.
34% 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 13,000 minutes out of 38,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, 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
6.0% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 305 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 runs 83.8% on time across 2,911 flights, within half a point 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 2,910 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. January runs 91.9% on time and May 71.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 2,898 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to IAH questions
How often is MSY 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 16.8% of the 2,910 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MSY to IAH compared with the rest of the country?
83.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSY to IAH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.8%, 15 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 MSY to IAH?
May is the weakest month at 71.8% on time, compared with 91.9% in January. Across the year that is 20 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 MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MSY to IAH83.2%
- Spirit Airlines on MSY to IAH82.4%
- MSY to ATL, a related route82.2%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- MSY to DFW, a related route74.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.8%
- United Airlines on-time record83.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record82.4%
- 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. MSY to IAH and IAH to MSY 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.