The sector is held by NetJets Aviation and United Airlines.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
IAH Houston to IAD Washington DC
George Bush Intercontinental, the United States, to Washington Dulles, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- 6.6 times a day
- Great circle
- 1,913 km
- Block, estimated
- 2h 57m
- Door to door
- 9h 42m
What IAH to IAD looks like
The IAH to IAD sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Houston IAH to Washington DC IAD is a medium haul sector of 1,913 km by great circle, flown nonstop 6.6 times a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 1,913 km, 830 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 2h 57m.
Houston IAH is a major hub in the network held here, 197 scheduled destinations and 641 departures a day. Washington DC IAD has 270 destinations and 481.8 departures a day.
Washington DC is one hour ahead of Houston all year.
The pair sits inside the Americas, a corridor where the site already publishes 13 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on IAH to IAD from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| IAH to IAD | 6.57 | 46 | NetJets Aviation, United Airlines |
| IAD to IAH | 6.29 | 44 | United Airlines |
Two carriers hold the sector, NetJets Aviation and United Airlines, which gives a missed departure somewhere to go without leaving the nonstop.
At 6.6 times a day there is usually another departure within a few hours, which is what makes a same day booking on this pair realistic.
Between them the two directions put about 90 departures a week on IAH to IAD, which is the number that decides whether a seat can be found today or on Thursday.
The clock from collection to signature
The same ground timings the route calculator starts from, applied to the 2h 57m block time on IAH to IAD. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to IAH | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At IAH before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| IAH to IAD in the air, estimated | 177 min | 7h 27m |
| Formalities at IAD | 90 min | 8h 57m |
| Delivery run in Washington DC | 45 min | 9h 42m |
| Door to door | 582 min | 9h 42m |
On the desk standard ground timings, ninety minutes to collect and reach the airport, three hours at the airport before departure, ninety minutes of arrival formalities and a forty five minute delivery run, the door to door figure for IAH to IAD is 9h 42m.
A courier who leaves Houston at 09:00 local is on the ground in Washington DC at about 12:57 local and at the door by 15:12 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Washington DC, the last useful departure from Houston is around 11:48 local.
When the nonstop does not work
Every airport that joins the two ends, ranked by when they land, among the ones whose weaker leg is dependable enough to plan on. Connection time is allowed for the size of the hub. 71 of them join IAH to IAD.
| Connecting at | IAH to hub, flights a day | Hub to IAD, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greenville GSP | 1.71 | 2.71 | 1,964 | 4h 38m |
| New Orleans MSY | 8.57 | 1.86 | 2,025 | 4h 41m |
| Mobile MOB | 4.57 | 1.14 | 2,030 | 4h 44m |
| Baltimore BWI | 4.57 | 0.86 | 2,059 | 4h 53m |
| Raleigh RDU | 4.29 | 5.71 | 2,036 | 4h 55m |
| Nashville BNA | 5.29 | 3.86 | 1,928 | 4h 58m |
With 6.6 times a day on the nonstop, a connection here is a disruption plan rather than a routing, and it is listed because a closed runway or a cancellation wave is exactly when nobody has time to work it out.
71 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Greenville GSP, where the weaker of the two legs still runs about once a day.
Through GSP the routing covers 1,964 km against the 1,913 km nonstop track and takes about 4h 38m in the air and on the ground at the hub, allowing 60 minutes to connect at an airport of that size.
That is only 1h 41m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, New Orleans MSY at 4h 41m and Mobile MOB at 4h 44m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Houston, Houston HOU is 38 km away by great circle and carries 145 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
If nothing suitable leaves Washington DC, Washington DC DCA is 38 km away by great circle and carries 112 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
Plan Houston to Washington DC yourself
The same tool the dispatchers use, open to anybody and free. It is loaded with this pair already. Change either end, add a stopover or a preferred airline, and it works out the connection, the transit and the door to door clock, with the real departures underneath. Put it on your own site if it is useful to you.
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Restrictions
Where this came from, and where to look next
- Carriers and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics, retrieved 2026-09-07. Average daily flights, not a timetable.
- Distances: great circle from published coordinates. They read short against a flown track, which is why the block time above applies a factor to them.
- Block and connection times: the same model the route calculator lower down this page runs, at the same rounding.
- Restrictions: the airport notes file, checked 2026-09-07.
- Industrial sites: public company information. Nothing here says or implies that any company named is a customer of any courier operator.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a placement desk in Dubai. An assignment is carried out by a vetted partner operator, with the desk as the single point of contact from the quote to the signature. This page exists because our own dispatchers need the answer for IAH to IAD in the twenty minutes before a promise is made, and a reference only one operator can read is not a reference. Free to read, quote and cite. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
If you need something moved rather than looked up, the desk prices a hand carry in fifteen minutes.
- The IAH airport entry
- The IAD airport entry
- Hand carry into the United States
- The written lane, Doha to Houston
- The written lane, Dubai to Houston
- The written lane, Houston to Aberdeen
- The route calculator
More pairs through IAH and IAD: Washington DC to Seattle, Washington DC to Detroit, Boston to Washington DC, Dubai to Washington DC, Washington DC to San Diego, Sao Paulo to Washington DC, Washington DC to Montreal, Charlotte to Washington DC.