Carrier route record
AAIND→DFW
American Airlines · Indianapolis to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,898
- 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 IND to DFW lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,898 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's IND to DFW record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 44 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,844 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.2%
Every carrier on IND to DFW, 2,046 flights
These figures cover 1,898 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 IND to DFW
American flew 1,898 of the 2,046 flights on IND to DFW, most of the route. Its 81.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to Envoy at 66.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 20.00% | A− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 17 | 94.1% | 44 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,898 | 81.7% | 103 min | 2.53% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 71.4% | 67 min | 0.83% | C+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 6 | 66.7% | 25 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on IND to DFW
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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 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am659 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am136 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm456 flights84.3%
- 2pm–5pm258 flights81.6%
- 5pm–8pm320 flights69.7%
- 8pm–5am69 flights54.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.7% on time, against 87.6% 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 659 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on IND to DFW through the year
December is the weak month at 68.8% on time, against 90.1% 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 183 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.9%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on IND to DFW runs when it is late
American on IND to DFW often beats the schedule: 790 of 1,844 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 337 late arrivals split 90 under half an hour, 98 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 149 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early790 flights42.8%
- Within 15 min717 flights38.9%
- 15–29 min late90 flights4.9%
- 30–59 min late98 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late83 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late66 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,844 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
87 of 350 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 74 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on IND to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 July 2026, 24 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 July 2026 | 24 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 24 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 May 2026 | 19 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 October 2025 | 18 hours 41 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 4 June 2026 | 16 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 34,558 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 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 costs
8.1% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 69.3% on time across 1,896 flights, 12 points below 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 1,898 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 IND to DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 90.1% on time and December 68.8%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,844 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IND to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to IND, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on IND to DFW71.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.