Carrier route record
AAIND→DFW
American Airlines · Indianapolis to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,887
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 92%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on IND to DFW lands a B−, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,887 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on IND to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,819 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.2%
Every carrier on IND to DFW, 2,048 flights
These figures cover 1,887 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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
American against every carrier on IND to DFW
American flew 1,887 of the 2,048 flights on IND to DFW, most of the route. Its 79.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.2%. 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 63.6%. 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 | 35 | 85.7% | 83 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,887 | 79.3% | 112 min | 3.07% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 110 | 76.4% | 75 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 11 | 63.6% | 20 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on IND to DFW
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 23 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–8am621 flights85.5%
- 8am–11am198 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm394 flights83.2%
- 2pm–5pm315 flights81.2%
- 5pm–8pm325 flights62.3%
- 8pm–5am34 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.3% on time, against 85.5% 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 621 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on IND to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 64.8% on time, 25 points below October, the best at 90.1%. 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 183 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.7%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
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 42,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 42,220 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 16,000 of the 42,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.07%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
8.7% 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 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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.1% on time across 1,886 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 1,887 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.07% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,819 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 DFW76.4%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.