Carrier route record
AADFW→IND
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 1,896
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 93%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to IND sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,896 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DFW to IND runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 80 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,847 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.3%
Every carrier on DFW to IND, 2,044 flights
These figures cover 1,896 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DFW to IND
American flew 1,896 of the 2,044 flights on DFW to IND, most of the route. Its 69.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to American at 69.3%. Four 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 17 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 20.00% | A− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 28 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 80.7% | 79 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,896 | 69.3% | 69 min | 2.48% | C |
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Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am329 flights84.4%
- 8am–11am193 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm271 flights72.2%
- 2pm–5pm391 flights64.2%
- 5pm–8pm452 flights62.4%
- 8pm–5am260 flights54.8%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.8% on time, against 84.6% for the 8am–11am 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 452 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to IND through the year
July is the worst month at 54.9% on time, 25 points below August, the best at 80.2%. 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 184 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 62.3%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DFW to IND runs when it is late
The 567 late arrivals split 178 under half an hour, 185 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 204 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early372 flights20.1%
- Within 15 min908 flights49.2%
- 15–29 min late178 flights9.6%
- 30–59 min late185 flights10.0%
- 1–2 hours late124 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late80 flights4.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,847 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
115 of 632 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 50 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DFW to IND
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 December 2025, 15 hours 7 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 December 2025 | 15 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 December 2025 | 12 hours 52 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 24 June 2026 | 9 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 November 2025 | 9 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 September 2025 | 8 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 39,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 39,163 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 761 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 81.7% on time across 1,898 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,896 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on DFW to IND
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 80.2% on time and July 54.9%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,847 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to IND, every carrier
- American on IND to DFW, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to IND80.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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.