Route reliability record
SNA→IAH
Santa Ana to Houston
- Flights
- 1,094
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,346 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,094 SNA to IAH flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly SNA to IAH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 91.1%, against 87.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 103 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,087 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.09%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
87.9% on time across 1,094 flights
These figures cover 1,094 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SNA 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 | 1,094 | 87.9% | 74 min | 0.09% | A+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Ana 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SNA → IAHSanta Ana to Houston | United Airlines | 87.8% | 87.9% | 0.09% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | United Airlines | 86.9% | 87.1% | 0.26% | 5am–8am, Thu | UA 491 00:55 |
| 3. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | Delta Air Lines | 85.2% | 86.1% | 1.09% | 8am–11am, Thu | DL 1143 08:45 |
| 4. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | SkyWest Airlines | 81.6% | 82.0% | 0.49% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. LAX → IAHLos Angeles to Houston | Spirit Airlines | 76.5% | 77.5% | 1.32% | 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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am41 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am324 flights96.2%
- 11am–2pm365 flights86.2%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights81.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 96.2% of the time, against 81.5% for the afternoon 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
July is the worst month at 77.5% on time, 19 points below October, the best at 96.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 83.8%. 7 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. National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 9,735 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.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 9,735 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 9,735 reported delay minutes.
43% 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 4,139 minutes out of 9,735, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.09%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.1% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,346 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 87.2% on time across 1,094 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,094 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. 1,094 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 87.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,087 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to IAH questions
How often is SNA to IAH delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.1% of the 1,094 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is SNA to IAH compared with the rest of the country?
87.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SNA to IAH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 96.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 81.5%, 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 July delays on SNA to IAH?
July is the weakest month at 77.5% on time, compared with 96.7% in October. Across the year that is 19 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 SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- SNA to SFO, a related route70.3%
- ORD to IAH, a related route75.0%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- United Airlines on-time record87.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. SNA to IAH and IAH to SNA 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.