Houston · TX

IAH — George Bush Intercontinental Airport

Five terminals, two internal trains, and no train into the city

Bush Intercontinental is Houston's long-haul gateway and a major connecting hub for Latin America. Five terminals sit around the airfield, connected airside by one train and landside by another, which sounds confusing and mostly is not once you know which one you need.

The weakness is ground transport. There is no rail link into Houston, the airport sits well north of downtown, and traffic on the run in is unpredictable. Whatever your plan, allow more time than the distance suggests.

Terminals and how they connect

Terminals A, B and C

Predominantly domestic operations, with Terminal C serving as a main hub concourse for the largest operator.

Terminal D

The principal international terminal, handling most foreign carrier arrivals and departures.

Terminal E

Mixed domestic and international, including much of the hub carrier's own international flying.

Getting between them

The Skyway runs airside and connects the terminals without leaving security — this is the one to use when connecting. The Subway runs landside and is for passengers who have already exited.

Getting into Houston

Times below are realistic ranges rather than best cases. Rail journeys keep to a timetable; road journeys do not, and treating the two the same is how people miss flights.

Taxi or rideshare

35 to 75 minutes to downtown

The default option, and the range is wide because Houston's freeways are genuinely unpredictable. Off-peak it is quick; at rush hour it is not.

METRO bus route 102

About 60 to 90 minutes to downtown

Cheap and it exists, which is the main thing to say for it. Slow and infrequent compared with the rail links other US hubs have, but a genuine option on a budget.

Connecting through IAH

Use the Skyway rather than the Subway if you are connecting: the first runs airside and the second does not, and confusing them means clearing security again. International arrivals must clear immigration and customs, collect bags and re-enter security, which at Terminal D during the afternoon arrival bank takes real time. Allow generously on any itinerary that arrives internationally and connects onward.

Worth knowing before you fly

Skyway is airside, Subway is landside

The names give no clue. Taking the wrong one when connecting means exiting security and queuing again, which is the single most common mistake here.

There is no train into Houston

Unlike Atlanta, Chicago or Washington, Bush has no rail connection to the city. Budget for a road journey and for the possibility that it takes twice as long as the map suggests.

Houston has a second airport

Hobby, on the south side, is closer to downtown and serves mostly domestic and some Latin American routes. If you are comparing fares between them, the ground transport difference is significant.

Terminal assignments, transit timetables and fares all change. Confirm the details that matter to your trip with the airport or transport operator before you travel.

Will you make your connection at IAH?

We hold IAH's transfer times from Houston Airport System, IAH Connecting Passengers, read on 2026-07-29, so the full guide does this arithmetic with the airport's own published figures rather than asking you for them.

Open the IAH layover guide

If your flight through IAH is cancelled or badly delayed

IAH in the DOT's own numbers

Departures from Houston as the carriers filed them with the US Department of Transportation for May 2026. This is the figure that decides whether a delay here is anybody's fault but the weather's.

IAH ranks 13th of 41 for departures among the airports we cover, its 21.8% late rate is about typical for the set, and 72.2% of the filed delay minutes were coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft rather than extreme weather or air traffic control, below the 74.6% median here.

Departures filed: 8,602
Over 15 min late: 21.8%
Cancelled: 0.3%
Carrier delay + late-arriving aircraft: 72.2%

The last figure is the share of filed delay minutes coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft rather than extreme weather or air traffic control. It sums two BTS fields and is not a BTS field itself, and it establishes no fault: the late-arriving code records that the inbound aircraft was late, not what delayed it. The reasoning, and the objection to it, are set out in the airline accountability index. Summed across reporting carriers only, so a hub carrying a lot of non-reporting regional traffic reads better here than a traveller experiences it.

These are monthly aggregate filing codes. They cannot establish what caused your individual flight, whether it was within the carrier's control, or whether compensation is owed.

The departures from IAH most likely to run late

Every carrier and destination out of Houston with enough filed departures to measure, worst first. A route missing from this list flies too thinly for a percentage to mean anything, which is a reason to withhold it rather than to soften it.

Route	Airline	Flights	Late
IAH → SFO	United Airlines	307	33.6%
IAH → ORD	United Airlines	353	21.8%
IAH → DEN	United Airlines	332	16.6%
IAH → LAX	United Airlines	303	15.8%

What the airlines flying here have committed to in writing

Under 14 CFR § 253.4 a carrier's Conditions of Carriage are incorporated into your ticket, which makes them enforceable terms rather than a customer-service policy. Below is what each carrier with filed departures from IAH commits to when the disruption is theirs. These 3 have contract text we have read ourselves.

American Airlines

Ask for the seat

American Airlines' contract commits to their own next available flight and says nothing about who sold the ticket.

Rebooking your delayed / canceled flight. Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source

Delta Air Lines

Ask for the seat

Delta Air Lines' contract commits to their own next available flight and says nothing about who sold the ticket.

Rule 19.A, Delta's Liability in the Event of Schedule Changes, Delays and Flight Cancellations. Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source

United Airlines

We hold no text

United Airlines' contract page refuses automated requests, so we cannot verify what it currently says and will not paraphrase it.

Not yet transcribed. Source

F9 also file departures from IAH. We have not transcribed their Conditions of Carriage, so this page says nothing about what they promise rather than guessing.

Get the exact clause and a script to read them

The federal floor, underneath any contract

Statutory minimums, so no airline's contract and no agency's terms can go below them. They follow your itinerary rather than IAH, so each one is set out in full on its own tool:

How IAH compares with airports of its size

A late-departure rate means little on its own, so these are the airports sitting immediately either side of IAH on the same table. Each figure is the share of departures leaving more than fifteen minutes behind schedule, from the same Department of Transportation filing.

Which airlines run late out of IAH

Departures from IAH as filed with the US Department of Transportation, worst first. Only carriers with at least 300 departures in the month appear, so a carrier missing from this table flies here too thinly to measure fairly rather than perfectly.

Airline	Departures	Over 15 min late	Carrier delay + late-arriving aircraft
Frontier Airlines	564	28.7%	81.9%
American Airlines	697	23.2%	72.6%
United Airlines	6,414	21.2%	69.8%
Delta Air Lines	767	20.2%	76.3%

The last column is the share of filed delay minutes coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft, as opposed to extreme weather or air traffic control. It records how the minutes were filed, not who was at fault. Each airline guide carries that carrier's national record; the accountability index sets out why late inbound aircraft is grouped with carrier delay, and publishes the whole table as a downloadable file.

Figures cover May 2026, a single reporting month, from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics On-Time Performance database. Retrieved 2026-07-28. Reporting under 14 CFR part 234 covers domestic US scheduled service only, so no international route appears — including anything to or from Mexico.

Airlines based at IAH

Carriers based here, which usually means more non-stops and more daily frequencies to fall back on if something goes wrong.

United AirlinesUA

Routes through IAH

Flying from Houston

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FAQ

IAH — common questions

Terminals, transfers and getting into the city.

How do I get from Houston Bush airport to downtown?

There is no rail link, so it is a road journey of roughly thirty-five to seventy-five minutes depending entirely on traffic. Taxi and rideshare are the practical options. METRO bus route 102 is much cheaper and takes an hour or more, running less frequently than a city rail link would.

What is the difference between the Skyway and the Subway at IAH?

The Skyway is the airside train, connecting terminals without leaving security, and it is the one to use when connecting between flights. The Subway is the landside train, for passengers who have already cleared security or collected bags. Taking the wrong one during a connection means clearing security a second time.

Should I fly into Bush or Hobby?

Bush Intercontinental handles the long-haul international traffic and most connecting itineraries. Hobby is closer to downtown and serves mostly domestic and some Latin American routes. Since neither has a rail link, the ground transport difference comes down to distance, and Hobby's position south of the city is an advantage if that is where you are heading.

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