Route reliability record
IND→LAX
Indianapolis to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 853
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,814 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 853 IND to LAX flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly IND to LAX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Friday flights 88.6%, against 82.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 848 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.59%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
82.5% on time across 466 flights
These figures cover 853 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IND to LAX
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 336 | 86.3% | 74 min | 0.30% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 466 | 82.5% | 103 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 34 | 76.5% | 72 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 60.0% | 26 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 12 | 25.0% | 91 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on IND to LAX
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.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 853 flights.
- 5am–8am184 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am23 flights—
- 11am–2pm6 flights—
- 2pm–5pm178 flights81.4%
- 5pm–8pm445 flights83.2%
- 8pm–5am17 flights—
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 86.4% on time for the 5am–8am window against 81.4% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 445 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 70.8% on time, against 91.6% in May. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.2%. 11 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. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 13,000 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, 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 6,326 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,198 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 86.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.59%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.4% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,814 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 81.1% on time across 855 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 853 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 853 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 82.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 848 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to LAX questions
How often is IND to LAX delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.2% of the 853 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is IND to LAX compared with the rest of the country?
82.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IND to LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 81.4%, 5 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 LAX?
December is the weakest month at 70.8% on time, compared with 91.6% in May. 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
- LAX to IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on IND to LAX86.3%
- American Airlines on IND to LAX82.5%
- IND to ORD, a related route76.5%
- SFO to LAX, a related route73.9%
- IND to ATL, a related route88.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.3%
- American Airlines on-time record82.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. IND to LAX and LAX to IND are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed IND to LAX’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.