Route reliability record
IND→DEN
Indianapolis to Denver
- Flights
- 2,463
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 976 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,463 IND to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 791 at 82.7% on time.
Best time to fly IND to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.6%, against 78.0% 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
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,448 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
82.7% on time across 791 flights
These figures cover 2,463 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 IND to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 75.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,402 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 791 | 82.7% | 65 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,402 | 75.9% | 52 min | 0.57% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 270 | 75.2% | 80 min | 0.00% | B+ |
United leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on IND to DEN
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 Denver
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IND → DENIndianapolis to Denver | United Airlines | 82.3% | 82.7% | 0.51% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 1607 08:00 |
| 2. IND → DENIndianapolis to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 75.5% | 75.9% | 0.57% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 35 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am377 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am497 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm265 flights81.1%
- 2pm–5pm575 flights77.4%
- 5pm–8pm418 flights58.4%
- 8pm–5am331 flights72.0%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.4% on time, against 93.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 575 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IND to DEN 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 DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.4%, a wide gap of 34.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.0%
- 8–11am86.4%
- 11am–2pm81.1%
- 2–5pm77.4%
- 5–8pm58.4%
- 8pm–5am72.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 62.6% on time, against 84.2% in July. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 242 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.7%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 32,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 31,539 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 93.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 976 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 77.2% on time across 2,468 flights, within about a point 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 2,463 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 DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. July runs 84.2% on time and December 62.6%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,448 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to DEN questions
How often is IND to DEN delayed?
Roughly 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 22.0% of the 2,463 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on IND to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 82.7% on time across 791 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 75.9%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IND to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.4%, 35 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 DEN?
December is the weakest month at 62.6% on time, compared with 84.2% in July. Across the year that is 22 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
- DEN to IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on IND to DEN82.7%
- Southwest Airlines on IND to DEN75.9%
- Frontier Airlines on IND to DEN75.2%
- IND to ORD, a related route76.7%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- IND to ATL, a related route87.9%
- United Airlines on-time record82.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.2%
- 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. IND to DEN and DEN 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.