PlainFlights

IAH vs SFO - Airport Comparison

Select two airports to compare on-time performance, delays, cancellations, and top routes using U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data (2020–2025) across all 50 states. See our methodology for how metrics are computed.

Airport A
IAH

Houston, TX

Houston, Texas

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Airport B
SFO

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco, California

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Key Performance Metrics

BTS on-time performance data, 2020–2025 cumulative.

Metric IAH SFO
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 81.6% 81.0%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 79.8 min 72.5 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 18.4% 19.0%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 1.13% 0.85%
Total Flights 1,404,392 1,466,784
Delayed Flights 258,419 278,538
Cancelled Flights 15,858 12,405
Top Delay Cause Carrier Late Aircraft

✓ / ▲ indicates the more favorable value. Data: BTS On-Time Performance, 2020–2025.

Delay Cause Breakdown

IAH - Houston, TX

Carrier 38.4%
Late Aircraft 34.9%
NAS 18.1%
Weather 8.6%
Security 0.0%

SFO - San Francisco, CA

Late Aircraft 42.0%
Carrier 36.9%
NAS 17.9%
Weather 3.2%
Security 0.1%

Top Routes

Top routes from IAH

Route Flights On-Time
IAH → DFW
Dallas/Fort Worth
30,197 76.6%
DFW → IAH
Houston
30,188 76.3%
IAH → LAX
Los Angeles
28,113 83.4%
LAX → IAH
Houston
28,102 86.2%
IAH → DEN
Denver
27,947 80%
IAH → ORD
Chicago
27,946 81%

Top routes from SFO

Route Flights On-Time
LAX → SFO
San Francisco
63,553 78.7%
SFO → LAX
Los Angeles
63,540 82.9%
SFO → SEA
Seattle
37,671 82.1%
SEA → SFO
San Francisco
37,651 79.1%
JFK → SFO
San Francisco
35,481 81.9%
SFO → JFK
New York
35,481 83.2%

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) On-time rates exclude cancelled and diverted flights. PlainFlights is not affiliated with BTS or the DOT

Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This tool queries live on-time, delay, and cancellation figures for the two selected airports from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.