Carrier route record
WNAUS→IND
Southwest Airlines · Austin to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 807
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on AUS to IND lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 807 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on AUS to IND from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 801 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.2%
Every carrier on AUS to IND, 1,359 flights
These figures cover 807 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on AUS to IND
Southwest flew 807 of the 1,359 flights on AUS to IND, most of the route. Its 76.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 80.9% to Southwest at 76.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 552 | 80.9% | 90 min | 0.36% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 807 | 76.3% | 53 min | 0.62% | B+ |
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Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am112 flights96.4%
- 8am–11am171 flights94.1%
- 11am–2pm78 flights84.4%
- 2pm–5pm160 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm123 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am163 flights55.0%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.0% on time, against 96.4% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 171 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on AUS to IND through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 91.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 92.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.7%, a spread of 22 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on AUS to IND runs when it is late
The 190 late arrivals split 69 under half an hour, 71 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 50 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early85 flights10.6%
- Within 15 min526 flights65.7%
- 15–29 min late69 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late71 flights8.9%
- 1–2 hours late31 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late19 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 801 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
28 of 191 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 27 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on AUS to IND
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 July 2026, 4 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 July 2026 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 September 2025 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 April 2026 | 3 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 April 2026 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 December 2025 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 to one. The split is drawn from 10,010 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 96.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.62%, below the national 1.89% 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.2% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 919 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.2% on time across 807 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 807 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on AUS to IND
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 807 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 801 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to IND, every carrier
- Southwest on IND to AUS, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on AUS to IND80.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.