Carrier route record

MQORD→IAH

Envoy Air · Chicago to Houston

Flights: 358
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 6%
Carriers: 8

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.

Envoy on ORD to IAH sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 358 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 4,000 at 78.6% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Envoy on ORD to IAH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 351 completed flights

Avg delay

63 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.40%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.0%

Every carrier on ORD to IAH, 6,077 flights

These figures cover 358 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

Envoy against every carrier on ORD to IAH

Envoy flew 358 of the 6,077 flights on ORD to IAH, about 6% of it. Its 74.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of eight carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.6% to SkyWest at 0.0%. Five of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 60.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 798 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to IAH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	4,000	78.6%	67 min	0.65%	B+
Republic Airwaysthin sample	359	76.3%	69 min	2.51%	B
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	249	76.0%	96 min	2.41%	B
Envoy Air (this page)thin sample	358	74.4%	63 min	1.40%	C
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	307	63.1%	102 min	5.54%	D−
American Airlines	798	60.6%	84 min	3.01%	D−
PSA Airlinesthin sample	4	50.0%	74 min	0.00%	F+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	2	0.0%	32 min	0.00%	F+

American Airlines cancels 3.0% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

Departure window

When Envoy runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am44 flights79.5%
8am–11am72 flights82.9%
11am–2pm66 flights78.5%
2pm–5pm86 flights68.6%
5pm–8pm90 flights67.4%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.9% of the time, against 67.4% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 90 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Envoy on ORD to IAH through the year

Jul–Sep 202555 flights83.6%
Oct–Dec 202547 flights83.0%
Jan–Mar 2026165 flights73.0%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights66.7%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 74.4% on time across 358 flights.

Envoy on ORD to IAH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.6% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 66.7%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 90 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, Monday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 59.3%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Envoy runs late on this route

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 5,671 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
27%
Carrier
19%
Extreme weather
16%

Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 5,671 reported delay minutes.

38% 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 2,151 minutes out of 5,671, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.40% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.56%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 925 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 72.8% on time across 359 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. 358 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 Envoy on ORD to IAH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 358 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 74.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 351 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures