IAH → EWR Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · IAHNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:53 UTC

Houston airport profile →

Destination · EWRNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:51 UTC

Newark airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

52/ 100Fair

Better than 19% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 11,534 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

75.3%

8,450 of 11,225

Cancellation rate

2.16%

249 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-6 min

Average 10.5 min

Severe delays

9.9%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

77 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

11,534

2 carriers

IAH → EWR arrives on time 75.3% of the time; the return trip, EWR → IAH, arrives on time 77.7% of the time, a 2.4-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

IAH → EWR spends 31.1 minutes on the ground on a 1,400-mile trip: 21.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at IAH and 9.9 minutes from touchdown to gate at EWR.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

Reliability here swings unusually widely by season, a wider month-to-month spread than 96% of 3,357 comparable routes.

86.8% on time in a typical January, against 60.0% in July.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 3,357 in the comparison.

Why IAH → EWR flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

IAH → EWR cancelled 249 of 11,534 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 46. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 60.6% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 76 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather60.6%

Airline31.3%

Air traffic8.0%

Security0.0%

Of 249 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 76

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

151 cancellations, 60.6% of the total.

The airline1 in 148

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

78 cancellations, 31.3% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 577

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

20 cancellations, 8.0% of the total.

Security—

A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.

0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.

Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.

249 coded cancellations were recorded on IAH → EWR; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

59 min late

against a median of 6 min early

Arrived an hour or more late9.9%

Typical delay when late77 min

Cancelled2.16%

Landed somewhere else0.52%

IAH → EWR has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 6 min early, but the worst tenth are 65 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.

Percentiles over 11,534 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at EWR after arriving from IAH.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, IAH → EWR arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	39%	Likely to miss
45 min	24%	High risk
60 min	17%	High risk
90 min	9.7%	Some risk
120 min	6.5%	Some risk

This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.16% of the time and diverts 0.52% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 11,225 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.

The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 59 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,534 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

IAH → EWR flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 89.2% of the time, against 63.9% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 25.3 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (IAH).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 9.6 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 3.2 points.

On-time arrival rate for IAH to EWR by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

50–59
60–69
70–79
80–89
90–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 6 AM and after 7 PM (1,066 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for IAH to EWR. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM	93.5% on time175 flights	93.5% on time159 flights	98.7% on time158 flights	87.9% on time175 flights	87.3% on time175 flights	87.7% on time166 flights	89.3% on time174 flights
7 AM–8 AM	89.4% on time164 flights	91.2% on time165 flights	91.4% on time155 flights	90.9% on time157 flights	82.7% on time160 flights	84.2% on time156 flights	86.8% on time162 flights
8 AM–9 AM	33 flights, too few to score	39 flights, too few to score	44 flights, too few to score	40 flights, too few to score	39 flights, too few to score	39 flights, too few to score	34 flights, too few to score
9 AM–10 AM	83.3% on time214 flights	85.0% on time197 flights	82.3% on time206 flights	78.4% on time207 flights	81.3% on time213 flights	81.1% on time222 flights	79.4% on time216 flights
10 AM–11 AM	93 flights, too few to score	106 flights, too few to score	93 flights, too few to score	100 flights, too few to score	92 flights, too few to score	103 flights, too few to score	91 flights, too few to score
11 AM–12 PM	92 flights, too few to score	88 flights, too few to score	89 flights, too few to score	88 flights, too few to score	91 flights, too few to score	80 flights, too few to score	94 flights, too few to score
12 PM–1 PM	107 flights, too few to score	108 flights, too few to score	107 flights, too few to score	108 flights, too few to score	106 flights, too few to score	111 flights, too few to score	105 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	69.8% on time143 flights	80.4% on time144 flights	76.8% on time144 flights	65.7% on time142 flights	68.3% on time145 flights	71.8% on time135 flights	71.9% on time143 flights
2 PM–3 PM	65.2% on time163 flights	73.7% on time161 flights	63.1% on time163 flights	55.2% on time159 flights	56.1% on time160 flights	62.1% on time161 flights	61.5% on time164 flights
3 PM–4 PM	11 flights, too few to score	13 flights, too few to score	8 flights, too few to score	13 flights, too few to score	13 flights, too few to score	13 flights, too few to score	11 flights, too few to score
4 PM–5 PM	67.8% on time157 flights	72.7% on time156 flights	66.9% on time155 flights	62.6% on time152 flights	60.0% on time159 flights	66.0% on time153 flights	57.1% on time154 flights
5 PM–6 PM	0 flights, too few to score	3 flights, too few to score	2 flights, too few to score	3 flights, too few to score	3 flights, too few to score	0 flights, too few to score	2 flights, too few to score
6 PM–7 PM	68.7% on time153 flights	72.8% on time153 flights	75.3% on time155 flights	63.8% on time153 flights	68.9% on time152 flights	62.8% on time150 flights	58.2% on time148 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM89.2%

9 AM–12 PM79.5%

12–3 PM67.3%

3–6 PM63.9%

6–9 PM69.2%

9 PM–5 AM—

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.

Why IAH → EWR runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Air traffic control42.4%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

The airline25.9%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Late-arriving aircraft23.6%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

Weather8.0%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.1%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for IAH → EWR. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of IAH to EWR: 3.4 times the normal rate at IAH and 3.3 times at EWR. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: IAH 4.1% against 1.2%, EWR 6.9% against 2.1%. Flights that did leave IAH in bad weather arrived on time 63.8% of the time, against 78.6% in normal hours.

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026

Departures from IAH and EWR in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	IAH	EWR
Cancelled in bad weather	4.1%	6.9%
Cancelled in normal hours	1.2%	2.1%
Arrived on time, bad weather	63.8%	65.8%
Arrived on time, normal hours	78.6%	80.0%
Departures in bad weather	28,922	51,613

United Airlines (3.4% cancelled against 5.2% for the other carriers at IAH) cancelled fewer departures from IAH in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at IAH

All departures from IAH

Cancellation rates in bad weather at IAH for the airlines that fly IAH to EWR, against the other carriers at IAH in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
United Airlines	17,078	3.4%below the others	5.2%
Spirit Airlines	2,056	4.3%about level	4.4%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from IAH and EWR, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from IAH on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: IAH (airlines), EWR, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.

Airlines on this route

Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
United Airlines	10,558	74.9%	2.07%	-5 min	10.0%
Spirit Airlines	976	79.2%	3.07%	-10 min	8.1%

United Airlines flew 91.5% of the 11,534 flights listed.

Spirit Airlines arrived on time 4.3 percentage points more often than United Airlines on this route.

Other ways to fly Houston to New York

Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.

Other ways to fly Houston to New York
Route	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Score
IAH→LGA Houston to New York	12,397	75.4%	2.25%	-6 min	50
IAH→EWR this route Houston to Newark	11,534	75.3%	2.16%	-6 min	52

Flying to EWR from the Houston area? Compare IAH, HOU for EWR, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
UA1886 United Airlines	7:20 AM	861	88.5%
UA404 United Airlines	6:36 PM	646	67.2%

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon76.3%

Tue81.0%

Wed78.4%

Thu72.3%

Fri72.9%

Sat74.0%

Sun72.2%

Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 8.8 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

July is historically the weakest month and January the strongest, a spread of 26.8 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 74.8% against 74.0% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,534 IAH → EWR flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.

Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

IAH airport EWR airport Return direction EWR → IAH

IAH→EWR

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

Why IAH → EWR flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why IAH → EWR runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at IAH

Airlines on this route

Other ways to fly Houston to New York

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology