Carrier performance at one airport
WN→IND
Southwest Airlines at Indianapolis International
- Departures
- 12,615
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 19
- Rank here
- #4 of 12
Southwest Airlines at Indianapolis lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 12,615 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 4,504 at 88.4% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs half a point behind the 79.9% weighted average across all carriers at IND. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
79.4%
12,491 completed departures
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.67%
At IND, this carrier only
Rank here
#4
Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at IND
These figures cover 13,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 4 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Against the competition
Every carrier at IND, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.4% of the time; Allegiant Air manages 72.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,660 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 4,504 | 88.4% | 76 min | 1.22% | A |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,546 | 82.5% | 89 min | 2.98% | B |
| Republic Airways | 13,581 | 81.1% | 66 min | 2.94% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 12,615 | 79.4% | 55 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 6,764 | 78.4% | 105 min | 2.20% | B |
| Envoy Air | 708 | 77.4% | 83 min | 1.55% | B |
| United Airlines | 2,853 | 77.3% | 75 min | 1.26% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,010 | 76.7% | 101 min | 2.69% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,004 | 73.6% | 87 min | 1.59% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 478 | 72.9% | 117 min | 9.41% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 564 | 72.4% | 49 min | 1.42% | C |
| Allegiant Air | 1,660 | 72.0% | 78 min | 0.48% | C+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 9.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where Southwest Airlines flies from IND
Southwest Airlines operates 19 routes out of IND with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IND to MCO · Orlando | 1,607 | 80.1% | 63 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| IND to DEN · Denver | 1,410 | 75.3% | 54 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| IND to BWI · Baltimore | 1,216 | 83.9% | 62 min | 1.64% | B |
| IND to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,117 | 78.8% | 50 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| IND to TPA · Tampa | 905 | 75.3% | 60 min | 0.66% | B+ |
| IND to PHX · Phoenix | 904 | 75.9% | 55 min | 0.22% | B+ |
| IND to RSW · Fort Myers | 817 | 79.8% | 57 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| IND to DAL · Dallas | 675 | 79.0% | 61 min | 1.04% | B |
| IND to AUS · Austin | 667 | 80.6% | 56 min | 0.15% | B+ |
| IND to MDW · Chicago | 611 | 76.4% | 44 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| IND to HOU · Houston | 492 | 86.9% | 55 min | 0.81% | A+ |
| IND to BNA · Nashville | 464 | 80.9% | 52 min | 0.22% | B+ |
| IND to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 417 | 82.9% | 41 min | 0.72% | B+ |
| IND to MCI · Kansas Citythin sample | 350 | 86.2% | 43 min | 0.57% | A+ |
| IND to ATL · Atlantathin sample | 334 | 79.6% | 47 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| IND to SAN · San Diegothin sample | 278 | 77.3% | 43 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| IND to SRQ · Sarasotathin sample | 191 | 79.6% | 72 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| IND to MIA · Miamithin sample | 108 | 74.1% | 46 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| IND to ECP · Panama Citythin sample | 41 | 85.4% | 91 min | 0.00% | A+ |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,578 flights93.3%
- 8am–11am1,379 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm2,065 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm2,184 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm2,276 flights66.0%
- 8pm–5am1,133 flights57.3%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.3% on time, against 93.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 70.9% on time, against 83.4% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 142,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, below the national 1.80% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
12,615 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 83.4% on time and December 70.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at IND
How often is Southwest Airlines at IND delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 12,615 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at IND?
Delta Air Lines leads at 88.4% on time across 4,504 flights. Allegiant Air is at the other end on 72.0%, a gap of 16 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Southwest Airlines at IND?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.3%, 36 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on Southwest Airlines at IND?
December is the weakest month at 70.9% on time, compared with 83.4% in September. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.