Route reliability record
BOS→IND
Boston to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 2,025
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 818 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,025 BOS to IND flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly BOS to IND: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Saturday flights 84.9%, against 80.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,973 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
80.5% on time across 1,975 flights
These figures cover 2,025 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 BOS 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 Linesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 18 | 83.3% | 95 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 1,975 | 80.5% | 69 min | 2.43% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 31 | 63.3% | 73 min | 3.23% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on BOS 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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am348 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am418 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm249 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm368 flights80.8%
- 5pm–8pm558 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am84 flights59.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.3% on time, against 90.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 558 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS 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 BOS to IND, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.3%, a wide gap of 31.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.6%
- 8–11am84.6%
- 11am–2pm86.0%
- 2–5pm80.8%
- 5–8pm70.6%
- 8pm–5am59.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,025 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
August is the worst month at 74.9% on time, 10 points below June, the best at 85.3%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 183 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.3%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 26,777 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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.42% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 818 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 runs 78.8% on time across 2,025 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,025 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: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 59.3% on time against 90.6% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 31 points is the largest single thing you control here. Republic Airways is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 1,973 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to IND questions
How often is BOS to IND delayed?
About 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 19.7% of the 2,025 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is BOS to IND compared with the rest of the country?
80.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BOS to IND?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.3%, 31 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 August delays on BOS to IND?
August is the weakest month at 74.9% on time, compared with 85.3% in June. Across the year that is 10 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 BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ORD to IND, a related route74.1%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record100.0%
- Allegiant Air on-time record83.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.5%
- 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. BOS to IND and IND to BOS 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.