Route reliability record
DCA→IND
Washington to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 2,027
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 500 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,027 DCA to IND flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to IND: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Saturday flights 88.1%, against 77.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,945 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
77.2% on time across 1,802 flights
These figures cover 2,027 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 27 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 28 | 77.8% | 26 min | 3.57% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,802 | 77.2% | 66 min | 3.83% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 192 | 76.1% | 107 min | 4.17% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Indianapolis
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → INDWashington to Indianapolis | Republic Airways | 83.4% | 84.3% | 1.06% | 8am–11am, Wed (route) | YX 3561 08:31 |
| 2. BWI → INDBaltimore to Indianapolis | Southwest Airlines | 77.1% | 78.0% | 1.15% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. DCA → INDWashington to Indianapolis | Republic Airways | 74.2% | 77.2% | 3.83% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4701 10:30 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 27 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–8am267 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am351 flights86.6%
- 11am–2pm373 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm346 flights76.6%
- 5pm–8pm535 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am155 flights64.8%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 91.3% 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 535 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 60.7% on time, against 87.0% in October. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 178 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.9%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 31,000 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
57% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 30,827 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 91.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.85%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 500 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 runs 74.5% on time across 2,025 flights, within 3 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 2,027 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.85% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,945 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to IND questions
How often is DCA to IND delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.9% of the 2,027 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to IND compared with the rest of the country?
77.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to IND?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.8%, 27 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 DCA to IND?
December is the weakest month at 60.7% on time, compared with 87.0% in October. Across the year that is 26 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 DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to IND77.2%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to IND76.1%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ORD to IND, a related route74.2%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.0%
- American Airlines on-time record77.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to IND and IND to DCA 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.