Route profile
TPA→IAH
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Tampa to Houston, 787 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 48% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 5,203 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
TPA → IAH arrives on time 82.6% of the time; the return trip, IAH → TPA, arrives on time 79.0% of the time, a 3.6-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
TPA → IAH spends 26.4 minutes on the ground on a 787-mile trip: 16.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at TPA and 9.9 minutes from touchdown to gate at IAH.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where TPA to IAH differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
TPA to IAH is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 4 PM: 77.2% arrive on time, 8.1 points ahead of the 69.1% those routes manage at that hour.
TPA to IAH holds up on Saturdays better than routes of similar length do: 84.7% on time to their 79.0%, a 5.7 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 5.6 points.
September is kinder to TPA to IAH than to routes of similar length: 91.6% on time against 82.3%, 9.3 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 9.2 points.
United Airlines does better on TPA to IAH than on its routes of similar length: 84.0% on time here, 79.0% there, 5 points apart. Against all other routes the gap is 4.1 points.
TPA to IAH against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 4 PM departures | 77.2% | routes of similar length | 69.1% | +8.1 pts | 162 here, 124,831 there |
| Weekday: Saturday | 84.7% | routes of similar length | 79.0% | +5.7 pts | 720 here, 276,423 there |
| Month: September | 91.6% | routes of similar length | 82.3% | +9.3 pts | 367 here, 174,969 there |
| Airline: United Airlines | 84.0% | routes of similar length | 79.0% | +5.0 pts | 4,224 here, 362,550 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 787 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.
Why TPA → IAH flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
TPA → IAH cancelled 94 of 5,203 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 55. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 40.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 137 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 94 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
38 cancellations, 40.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
36 cancellations, 38.3% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
20 cancellations, 21.3% of the total.
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. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
94 coded cancellations were recorded on TPA → IAH; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
41 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 5,203 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at IAH after arriving from TPA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 30% | High risk |
| 45 min | 17% | High risk |
| 60 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.8% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.5% | 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 1.81% of the time and diverts 0.29% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 5,094 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 41 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 5,203 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
TPA → IAH flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.0% of the time, against 71.6% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 20.4 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 88.4% on time from 122 flights
- 7 AM: 92.6% on time from 1,086 flights
- 8 AM: too few flights to score
- 9 AM: 88.2% on time from 762 flights
- 10 AM: too few flights to score
- 11 AM: 86.5% on time from 938 flights
- 12 PM: 84.5% on time from 240 flights
- 1 PM to 2 PM: too few flights to score
- 3 PM: 72.0% on time from 311 flights
- 4 PM: 77.2% on time from 166 flights
- 5 PM: 70.6% on time from 1,153 flights
- 6 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why TPA → IAH 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 TPA → IAH. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on TPA → IAH, at 38.6%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 92.0% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 71.6%.
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 | 4,309 | 84.0% | 1.62% | -11 min | 7.2% |
| Spirit Airlines | 684 | 77.0% | 2.92% | -7 min | 10.2% |
| Frontier Airlines | 210 | 70.4% | 1.90% | -3 min | 12.1% |
United Airlines flew 82.8% of the 5,203 flights listed. Spirit Airlines cancelled 2.92% of its flights here against 1.62% for United Airlines.
United Airlines arrived on time 13.6 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 6.1 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 84.4%
- Feb: 90.8%
- Mar: 77.8%
- Apr: 84.0%
- May: 74.5%
- Jun: 75.1%
- Jul: 74.6%
- Aug: 79.4%
- Sep: 91.6%
- Oct: 88.0%
- Nov: 89.7%
- Dec: 85.7%
May is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 17.1 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: too few flights to score (93)
- August 2023: too few flights to score (93)
- September 2023: too few flights to score (90)
- October 2023: too few flights to score (95)
- November 2023: 88.1% from 134 flights
- December 2023: 87.7% from 154 flights
- January 2024: 77.5% from 148 flights
- February 2024: 87.2% from 142 flights
- March 2024: 66.7% from 171 flights
- April 2024: 79.9% from 176 flights
- May 2024: 65.0% from 165 flights
- June 2024: 77.7% from 149 flights
- July 2024: 66.4% from 153 flights
- August 2024: 77.0% from 154 flights
- September 2024: 90.1% from 149 flights
- October 2024: 87.9% from 155 flights
- November 2024: 92.5% from 146 flights
- December 2024: 85.5% from 148 flights
- January 2025: 86.5% from 145 flights
- February 2025: 90.5% from 128 flights
- March 2025: 81.6% from 167 flights
- April 2025: 88.7% from 142 flights
- May 2025: 78.4% from 173 flights
- June 2025: 71.6% from 174 flights
- July 2025: 78.0% from 177 flights
- August 2025: 77.2% from 149 flights
- September 2025: 94.8% from 135 flights
- October 2025: 81.5% from 124 flights
- November 2025: 88.4% from 151 flights
- December 2025: 83.8% from 150 flights
- January 2026: 89.0% from 145 flights
- February 2026: too few flights to score (115)
- March 2026: 86.9% from 139 flights
- April 2026: 84.4% from 135 flights
- May 2026: 81.3% from 123 flights
- June 2026: too few flights to score (107)
- July 2026: too few flights to score (109)
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 85.4% against 83.5% in the 12 months before — improving by 1.9 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 5,203 TPA → 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