Route profile
SLC→HOU
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Salt Lake City to Houston, 1,214 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 89% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,233 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
SLC → HOU arrives on time 80.6% of the time; the return trip, HOU → SLC, arrives on time 81.6% of the time.
SLC → HOU spends 20.2 minutes on the ground on a 1,214-mile trip: 14.6 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SLC and 5.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at HOU.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where SLC to HOU differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
SLC to HOU holds up on Sundays better than routes of similar length do: 83.5% on time to their 73.4%, a 10.1 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 8.7 points.
Southwest Airlines does better on SLC to HOU than on its routes of similar length: 80.6% on time here, 75.8% there, 4.8 points apart. Against all other routes the gap is 3.2 points.
SLC to HOU against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday: Sunday | 83.5% | routes of similar length | 73.4% | +10.1 pts | 212 here, 290,678 there |
| Airline: Southwest Airlines | 80.6% | routes of similar length | 75.8% | +4.8 pts | 1,222 here, 431,298 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 1,214 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
28 min late
against a median of 4 min early
Percentiles over 1,233 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at HOU after arriving from SLC.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 40% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 8.9% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 3.7% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.0% | 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 0.24% of the time and diverts 0.65% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 1,222 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 28 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,233 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SLC → HOU flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 93.7% of the time, against 73.7% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 20.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 92.6% on time from 163 flights
- 6 AM to 10 AM: too few flights to score
- 11 AM: 80.3% on time from 179 flights
- 12 PM: too few flights to score
- 1 PM: 81.2% on time from 153 flights
- 2 PM: 72.9% on time from 210 flights
- 3 PM: 72.1% on time from 142 flights
- 4 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why SLC → HOU 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 SLC → HOU. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SLC → HOU, at 42.4%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 93.7% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 73.7%.
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 | 1,233 | 80.6% | 0.24% | -4 min | 3.7% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 6.7 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 83.7% against 78.8% in the 12 months before — improving by 4.9 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,233 SLC → 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