Carrier route record
WNAUS→IND
Southwest Airlines · Austin to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 713
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 61%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on AUS to IND sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 713 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 708 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on AUS to IND, 1,177 flights
These figures cover 713 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
Southwest against every carrier on AUS to IND
Southwest flew 713 of the 1,177 flights on AUS to IND, most of the route. Its 75.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Allegiant at 88.9% to Southwest at 75.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 10 | 88.9% | 177 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 454 | 79.4% | 82 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 713 | 75.4% | 53 min | 0.56% | B+ |
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 40 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am72 flights95.8%
- 8am–11am180 flights92.1%
- 11am–2pm85 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm123 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm121 flights61.2%
- 8pm–5am132 flights56.2%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.2% on time, against 95.8% 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 180 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. June was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 9,170 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
61% 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 9,170 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 9,170 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 95.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.56%, below the national 1.81% 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
6.8% 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 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.4% on time across 713 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 713 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. 713 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 75.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 708 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 IND79.4%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.