Route reliability record
ATL→IND
Atlanta to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 3,125
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 432 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,125 ATL to IND flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to IND: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.4%, against 81.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 45 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,084 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.0% on time across 2,667 flights
These figures cover 3,125 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to IND
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,667 | 83.0% | 57 min | 1.31% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 313 | 78.5% | 47 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 144 | 68.5% | 62 min | 0.69% | C+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 70 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to IND
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am246 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am496 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm590 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm718 flights80.1%
- 5pm–8pm401 flights76.4%
- 8pm–5am674 flights77.4%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 76.4% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 718 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to IND by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to IND, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.4%, a wide gap of 17.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am86.5%
- 11am–2pm83.7%
- 2–5pm80.1%
- 5–8pm76.4%
- 8pm–5am77.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
July is the worst month at 72.5% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 91.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 294 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 31,408 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 432 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.9% on time across 3,122 flights, 6 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,125 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in IND after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 91.3% on time and July 72.5%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,084 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to IND questions
How often is ATL to IND delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.2% of the 3,125 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to IND compared with the rest of the country?
81.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to IND?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.4%, 18 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 July delays on ATL to IND?
July is the weakest month at 72.5% on time, compared with 91.3% in September. Across the year that is 19 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 ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to IND83.0%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to IND78.5%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to IND68.5%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to IND, a related route74.1%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record68.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to IND and IND to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.