Route profile
SJC→IAH
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from San Jose to Houston, 1,608 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 62% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 842 flights. How this is calculated
SJC → IAH arrives on time 82.0% of the time; the return trip, IAH → SJC, arrives on time 80.0% of the time, a 2.0-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SJC → IAH spends 26.4 minutes on the ground on a 1,608-mile trip: 13.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SJC and 12.8 minutes from touchdown to gate at IAH.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Reliability on this route has fallen unusually sharply over the past year, a bigger swing than 96% of 5,368 comparable routes.
71.5% on time over the most recent 12 months (2025-06 to 2026-07), against 84.5% in the 12 months before (2024-03 to 2025-05), a change of 13.0 points.
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 5,368 in the comparison.
What sets this route apart
Where SJC to IAH differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
SJC to IAH is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 1 PM: 80.8% arrive on time, 5.7 points ahead of the 75.1% those routes manage at that hour.
SJC to IAH against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 1 PM departures | 80.8% | routes of similar length | 75.1% | +5.7 pts | 390 here, 95,529 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 1,608 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
39 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 842 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at IAH after arriving from SJC.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 34% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.0% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.6% | 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 0.95% of the time and diverts 0.12% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 833 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 39 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 842 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why SJC → IAH runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for SJC → IAH. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SJC → IAH, at 49.1%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 842 | 82.0% | 0.95% | -8 min | 7.3% |
Other ways to fly San Francisco to Houston
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SFO→IAH San Francisco to Houston | 10,330 | 84.3% | 0.85% | -8 min | 81 |
| SJC→IAH this route San Jose to Houston | 842 | 82.0% | 0.95% | -8 min | 70 |
SFO → IAH is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 84.3% on time, against 82.0% for SJC → IAH.
Flying to IAH from the San Francisco area? Compare SJC, SFO, OAK for IAH, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 6.3 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-06 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 71.5% against 84.5% in the 12 months before — declining by 13.0 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 842 SJC → IAH 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