Route profile
SAT→HOU
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from San Antonio to Houston, 192 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 77% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 4,745 flights. How this is calculated
SAT → HOU arrives on time 79.4% of the time; the return trip, HOU → SAT, arrives on time 79.4% of the time.
SAT → HOU spends 20.3 minutes on the ground on a 192-mile trip: 14.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SAT and 5.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at HOU.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
33 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 4,745 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at HOU after arriving from SAT.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 37% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 20% | High risk |
| 60 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.7% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.5% | Low 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 0.67% of the time and diverts 0.19% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 4,704 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 33 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 4,745 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SAT → HOU flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 90.8% of the time, against 66.7% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 24.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 94.7% on time from 265 flights
- 6 AM: 93.2% on time from 742 flights
- 7 AM: 89.8% on time from 128 flights
- 8 AM: 84.2% on time from 402 flights
- 9 AM: 90.7% on time from 231 flights
- 10 AM: 90.1% on time from 141 flights
- 11 AM: 89.3% on time from 189 flights
- 12 PM: 72.2% on time from 340 flights
- 1 PM: 81.1% on time from 262 flights
- 2 PM: too few flights to score
- 3 PM: 81.1% on time from 127 flights
- 4 PM: 77.1% on time from 228 flights
- 5 PM: 61.7% on time from 338 flights
- 6 PM: 61.5% on time from 445 flights
- 7 PM: 71.4% on time from 451 flights
- 8 PM: 67.5% on time from 318 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why SAT → HOU runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for SAT → HOU. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SAT → HOU, at 51.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 90.8% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 66.7%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 4,745 | 79.4% | 0.67% | -5 min | 4.8% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 6.4 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 86.1%
- Feb: 87.6%
- Mar: 76.7%
- Apr: 73.5%
- May: 70.4%
- Jun: 70.6%
- Jul: 67.9%
- Aug: 81.8%
- Sep: 86.3%
- Oct: 84.4%
- Nov: 83.7%
- Dec: 86.5%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 19.7 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 82.5% from 144 flights
- August 2023: 84.1% from 132 flights
- September 2023: 90.7% from 141 flights
- October 2023: 84.0% from 151 flights
- November 2023: 89.7% from 146 flights
- December 2023: 91.3% from 150 flights
- January 2024: 80.5% from 151 flights
- February 2024: 92.2% from 141 flights
- March 2024: 83.1% from 154 flights
- April 2024: 80.3% from 147 flights
- May 2024: 73.1% from 151 flights
- June 2024: 68.4% from 137 flights
- July 2024: 56.2% from 138 flights
- August 2024: 83.3% from 126 flights
- September 2024: 85.1% from 121 flights
- October 2024: 87.6% from 130 flights
- November 2024: 83.5% from 121 flights
- December 2024: 79.5% from 122 flights
- January 2025: 92.5% from 126 flights
- February 2025: too few flights to score (115)
- March 2025: 85.0% from 133 flights
- April 2025: 75.2% from 128 flights
- May 2025: 79.4% from 133 flights
- June 2025: 70.1% from 129 flights
- July 2025: 63.4% from 131 flights
- August 2025: 78.3% from 144 flights
- September 2025: 83.0% from 141 flights
- October 2025: 82.0% from 140 flights
- November 2025: too few flights to score (119)
- December 2025: 87.7% from 122 flights
- January 2026: too few flights to score (98)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (84)
- March 2026: too few flights to score (100)
- April 2026: too few flights to score (98)
- May 2026: too few flights to score (103)
- June 2026: too few flights to score (98)
- July 2026: too few flights to score (100)
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.1% against 80.6% in the 12 months before — declining by 5.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 4,745 SAT → HOU 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
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed