Route reliability record
IND→LGA
Indianapolis to New York
- Flights
- 2,506
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 660 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,506 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
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 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,387 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
82.2% on time across 2,499 flights
These figures cover 2,506 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 LGA
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 | 7 | 85.7% | 23 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 2,499 | 82.2% | 64 min | 4.28% | B− |
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 19 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–8am619 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am518 flights88.3%
- 11am–2pm614 flights81.1%
- 2pm–5pm289 flights72.6%
- 5pm–8pm466 flights71.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 71.2% for the evening window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 619 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 63.7%. August is the strongest month at 90.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 27 points. June was the busiest month here, with 227 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.2%. 7 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. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 27,000 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.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 13,000 minutes out of 27,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 26,989 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.27%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
6.5% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 660 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 76.6% on time across 2,506 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,506 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 this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.27% 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. 2,387 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to LGA questions
How often is IND to LGA delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.8% of the 2,506 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IND to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
82.2% 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 LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.2%, 19 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 March delays on IND to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 63.7% on time, compared with 90.4% in August. Across the year that is 27 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
- LGA to IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. IND to LGA and LGA to IND are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.