Route reliability record
IND→MSP
Indianapolis to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,252
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 503 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 1,252 IND to MSP flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly IND to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Thursday flights 87.4%, against 83.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 66 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,243 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.8% on time across 992 flights
These figures cover 1,252 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 MSP
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 Lines | 992 | 85.8% | 85 min | 0.60% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 260 | 76.7% | 89 min | 1.15% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on IND to MSP
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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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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm265 flights84.8%
- 2pm–5pm338 flights75.2%
- 5pm–8pm113 flights85.0%
- 8pm–5am171 flights81.8%
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 92.0% of the time, against 75.2% for the afternoon window. That is 17 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IND to MSP 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 MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.2%, a wide gap of 16.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.0%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm84.8%
- 2–5pm75.2%
- 5–8pm85.0%
- 8pm–5am81.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 66.7% on time, against 93.1% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.3%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Extreme weather
- 14%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 17,248 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,038 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.72%, 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
6.0% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 503 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 81.1% on time across 1,250 flights, within 3 points 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 1,252 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 MSP 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. October runs 93.1% on time and December 66.7%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,243 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to MSP questions
How often is IND to MSP 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 16.1% of the 1,252 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is IND to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
83.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 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 MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.2%, 17 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 MSP?
December is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 93.1% in October. Across the year that is 26 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
- MSP to IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on IND to MSP85.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on IND to MSP76.7%
- IND to ORD, a related route76.7%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- IND to ATL, a related route87.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. IND to MSP and MSP 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.