Route reliability record
IND→DCA
Indianapolis to Washington
- Flights
- 2,021
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 1.9% 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 2,021 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 85.8% of the time and Saturday flights 87.8%, against 74.1% 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
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,926 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
74.3% on time across 1,853 flights
These figures cover 2,021 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 | 1,853 | 74.3% | 57 min | 3.72% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 28 | 74.1% | 46 min | 3.57% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 135 | 70.7% | 160 min | 12.59% | 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.
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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 → BWIIndianapolis to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 84.7% | 85.9% | 1.41% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. IND → IADIndianapolis to Washington | Republic Airways | 83.9% | 85.0% | 1.28% | 8am–11am, Thu (route) | YX 3709 10:05 |
| 3. IND → DCAIndianapolis to Washington | Republic Airways | 71.5% | 74.3% | 3.72% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4352 07:39 |
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.
- 5am–8am507 flights85.8%
- 8am–11am504 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm26 flights—
- 2pm–5pm314 flights60.7%
- 5pm–8pm374 flights59.6%
- 8pm–5am296 flights68.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.6% on time, against 85.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 507 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IND to DCA 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 IND to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.6%, a wide gap of 26.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.8%
- 8–11am83.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm60.7%
- 5–8pm59.6%
- 8pm–5am68.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 87.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.2%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
47% 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 15,000 minutes out of 32,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 31,950 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 85.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.35%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
8.7% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.1% on time across 2,022 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,021 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 4.35% 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. 1,926 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 25.9% of the 2,021 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IND to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
74.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 85.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.6%, 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 DCA74.3%
- PSA Airlines on IND to DCA70.7%
- IND to ORD, a related route76.7%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- IND to ATL, a related route87.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.3%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.