Route reliability record
IND→PHL
Indianapolis to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,596
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 588 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about 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 1,596 IND to PHL flights, of which Republic Airways flew 574 at 90.0% on time.
Best time to fly IND to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.3%, against 80.9% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 90.0% on time across 574 flights.
Key figures
On time
80.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,525 completed flights
Avg delay
107 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
90.0% on time across 574 flights
These figures cover 1,596 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 90.0% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 74.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 487 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 574 | 90.0% | 59 min | 1.92% | A |
| American Airlines | 535 | 76.4% | 106 min | 2.62% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 487 | 74.8% | 132 min | 8.83% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Indianapolis to Philadelphia
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IND → PHLIndianapolis to Philadelphia | Republic Airways | 88.3% | 90.0% | 1.92% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. IND → PHLIndianapolis to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 74.4% | 76.4% | 2.62% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. IND → PHLIndianapolis to Philadelphia | PSA Airlines | 68.2% | 74.8% | 8.83% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am419 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am102 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm467 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm369 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm239 flights73.1%
- 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 91.7% of the time, against 72.3% for the afternoon 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 467 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IND to PHL 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 PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.3%, a wide gap of 19.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.7%
- 8–11am90.1%
- 11am–2pm79.6%
- 2–5pm72.3%
- 5–8pm73.1%
- 8pm–5am—
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 20 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 70.4% on time, against 90.6% in February. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 172 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 77.3%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 31,138 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 91.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.26%, against 1.89% 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
7.5% 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 588 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 76.3% on time across 1,594 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,596 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 PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.26% 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. 1,525 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to PHL questions
How often is IND to PHL delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.1% of the 1,596 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on IND to PHL?
Republic Airways leads at 90.0% on time across 574 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 74.8%, a gap of 15 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IND to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.3%, 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 December delays on IND to PHL?
December is the weakest month at 70.4% on time, compared with 90.6% in February. Across the year that is 20 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
- PHL to IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on IND to PHL90.0%
- American Airlines on IND to PHL76.4%
- PSA Airlines on IND to PHL74.8%
- IND to ORD, a related route76.7%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- IND to ATL, a related route87.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record90.0%
- American Airlines on-time record76.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. IND to PHL and PHL 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.