Route reliability record
IND→DCA
Indianapolis to Washington
- Flights
- 2,025
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 500 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,025 IND to DCA flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly IND to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.0% of the time and Saturday flights 88.9%, against 74.5% 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,933 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.30%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
75.2% on time across 1,800 flights
These figures cover 2,025 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 IND to DCA
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 | 100.0% | — | 20.00% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 1,800 | 75.2% | 57 min | 3.39% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 28 | 74.1% | 46 min | 3.57% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 192 | 67.1% | 118 min | 12.50% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on IND to DCA
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 Indianapolis to Washington
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. IND → IADIndianapolis to Washington | Republic Airways | 83.9% | 85.3% | 1.69% | 8am–11am, Thu (route) | YX 3709 10:05 |
| 2. IND → BWIIndianapolis to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 83.7% | 85.1% | 1.64% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 3. IND → DCAIndianapolis to Washington | Republic Airways | 72.7% | 75.2% | 3.39% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4802 10:00 |
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 26 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–8am512 flights85.0%
- 8am–11am502 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm26 flights—
- 2pm–5pm316 flights62.2%
- 5pm–8pm374 flights58.7%
- 8pm–5am295 flights71.0%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.7% on time, against 85.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 512 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 61.6% on time, against 82.2% in June. 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 88.9% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 70.2%. 19 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. National Airspace System accounts for 44% 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 14,000 minutes out of 31,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 31,431 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 85.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.30%, 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
8.4% 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 about 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 77.1% on time across 2,027 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 2,025 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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.30% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 1,933 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to DCA questions
How often is IND to DCA delayed?
About 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 25.5% of the 2,025 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IND to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
74.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IND to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.7%, 26 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 IND to DCA?
December is the weakest month at 61.6% on time, compared with 82.2% in June. Across the year that is 21 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
- DCA to IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on IND to DCA75.2%
- PSA Airlines on IND to DCA67.1%
- IND to ORD, a related route76.5%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- IND to ATL, a related route88.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.2%
- American Airlines on-time record74.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. IND to DCA and DCA to IND 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.