Route reliability record
TPA→IAH
Tampa to Houston
- Flights
- 1,523
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 787 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,523 TPA to IAH flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to IAH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.6%, against 86.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 90 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,513 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
88.2% on time across 1,335 flights
These figures cover 1,523 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 TPA 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 | 1,335 | 88.2% | 77 min | 0.30% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 98 | 74.0% | 111 min | 2.04% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 90 | 71.6% | 113 min | 2.22% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa 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. TPA → IAHTampa to Houston | United Airlines | 87.9% | 88.2% | 0.30% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | — |
| 2. TPA → HOUTampa to Houston | Southwest Airlines | 78.6% | 79.0% | 0.48% | 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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am377 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am318 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm388 flights90.6%
- 2pm–5pm61 flights83.6%
- 5pm–8pm378 flights74.1%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 74.1% for the evening window. That is 20 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 388 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA 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 TPA to IAH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 74.1%, a wide gap of 20.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am86.7%
- 11am–2pm90.6%
- 2–5pm83.6%
- 5–8pm74.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
June is the worst month at 77.1% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 95.7%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 151 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.0%, a spread of 11 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 18,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 34%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,132 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,732 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 5,965 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, 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
5.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 787 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 82.7% on time across 1,522 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,523 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. February runs 95.7% on time and June 77.1%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,513 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to IAH questions
How often is TPA to IAH delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.7% of the 1,523 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is TPA to IAH compared with the rest of the country?
86.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to IAH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.1%, 20 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 June delays on TPA to IAH?
June is the weakest month at 77.1% on time, compared with 95.7% in February. 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 TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ORD to IAH, a related route76.0%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- United Airlines on-time record88.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record74.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record71.6%
- 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. TPA to IAH and IAH to TPA 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.