Indianapolis, IN · departure reliability
IND
Indianapolis International
- Departures
- 48,376
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Carriers
- 12
- US rank
- #40 by volume
Indianapolis
Indianapolis International lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 48,376 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 4,468 at 88.8% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the twelve carriers covered here at 88.8% on time across 4,468 flights.
Key figures
On time
80.2%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.91%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
88.8% on time here
These figures cover 48,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of IND
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.8% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 72.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 564 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 13,651 | 81.5% | 66 min | 2.94% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 12,762 | 79.2% | 54 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 6,779 | 79.0% | 108 min | 2.21% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,468 | 88.8% | 77 min | 1.16% | A |
| United Airlines | 2,811 | 77.0% | 76 min | 1.21% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,088 | 77.1% | 101 min | 2.68% | B |
| Allegiant Air | 1,639 | 72.9% | 83 min | 0.67% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,351 | 83.6% | 90 min | 3.11% | B− |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,005 | 75.1% | 90 min | 1.49% | B |
| Envoy Air | 684 | 76.8% | 84 min | 1.90% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 574 | 75.4% | 107 min | 9.06% | B− |
| Alaska Airlines | 564 | 72.4% | 52 min | 1.42% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 9.1% 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
Busiest routes out of IND
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from IND, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 80.2%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IND to ORD · Chicago | 5,201 | 76.5% | 83 min | 3.06% | B− |
| IND to ATL · Atlanta | 3,187 | 88.5% | 72 min | 1.32% | A |
| IND to DEN · Denver | 2,540 | 77.3% | 57 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| IND to LGA · New York | 2,506 | 82.2% | 64 min | 4.27% | B− |
| IND to MCO · Orlando | 2,408 | 79.6% | 74 min | 1.37% | B |
| IND to EWR · Newark | 2,223 | 84.2% | 76 min | 3.91% | B− |
| IND to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,048 | 79.2% | 108 min | 2.88% | B |
| IND to DCA · Washington | 2,025 | 74.5% | 64 min | 4.30% | C− |
| IND to BOS · Boston | 2,016 | 78.2% | 67 min | 2.58% | B |
| IND to CLT · Charlotte | 1,970 | 81.9% | 120 min | 1.62% | B |
| IND to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,549 | 79.7% | 93 min | 3.03% | B− |
| IND to PHX · Phoenix | 1,531 | 78.6% | 69 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| IND to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,332 | 78.2% | 54 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| IND to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,245 | 83.1% | 88 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| IND to BWI · Baltimore | 1,216 | 85.1% | 58 min | 1.64% | A |
| IND to AUS · Austin | 1,177 | 83.4% | 61 min | 0.25% | B+ |
| IND to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,044 | 78.2% | 70 min | 2.01% | B |
| IND to JFK · New York | 1,002 | 83.1% | 78 min | 2.59% | B |
| IND to IAD · Washington | 997 | 85.5% | 62 min | 1.60% | A |
| IND to TPA · Tampa | 982 | 77.1% | 63 min | 0.81% | B+ |
| IND to DTW · Detroit | 979 | 79.7% | 93 min | 1.33% | B |
| IND to MIA · Miami | 928 | 78.9% | 92 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| IND to LAX · Los Angeles | 853 | 82.8% | 90 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| IND to RSW · Fort Myers | 813 | 79.4% | 56 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| IND to DAL · Dallas | 675 | 79.0% | 59 min | 1.19% | B |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave IND
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am12,931 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am7,259 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm8,090 flights82.2%
- 2pm–5pm8,384 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm9,064 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am2,648 flights64.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.3% on time, against 89.6% 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. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 12,931 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When IND runs late
IND's year swings by 16 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 69.5% on time, against 85.1% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 4,362 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.5%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why IND gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 699,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 699,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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. The split is drawn from 699,072 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.91% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
6.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
48,376 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.
What to do with this
Flying out of IND
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 85.1% on time and December 69.5%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 47,339 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND delay questions
How often is Indianapolis (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 19.8% of the 48,376 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Indianapolis (IND)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 88.8% on time across 4,468 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 72.4%, 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 Indianapolis (IND)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.3%, 25 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 Indianapolis (IND)?
December is the weakest month at 69.5% on time, compared with 85.1% in September. Across the year that is 16 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
- IND to ORD — Chicago76.5%
- IND to ATL — Atlanta88.5%
- IND to DEN — Denver77.3%
- IND to LGA — New York82.2%
- IND to MCO — Orlando79.6%
- IND to EWR — Newark84.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.2%
- American Airlines on-time record79.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.