Route reliability record
LAX→IND
Los Angeles to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 855
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,814 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, 4 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 855 LAX to IND flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAX to IND: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Friday flights 86.1%, against 81.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 848 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
74.0% on time across 466 flights
These figures cover 855 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to IND
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 | 335 | 92.2% | 57 min | 0.30% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 34 | 85.3% | 143 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 466 | 74.0% | 101 min | 0.64% | C+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 12 | 58.3% | 132 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 50.0% | 77 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX to IND
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 35 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–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am661 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm36 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm20 flights—
- 5pm–8pm58 flights55.2%
- 8pm–5am79 flights89.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 89.7% for the 8pm–5am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 661 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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 May, when the on-time rate falls to 74.7%. July is the strongest month at 87.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 13 points. May was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.5%. 14 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 15,000 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.
- 67%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
67% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 67 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 15,304 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.47%, 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
8.6% 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 82.8% on time across 853 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. 855 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 IND after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 855 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 81.1% 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
LAX to IND questions
How often is LAX to IND 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 18.9% of the 855 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is LAX to IND compared with the rest of the country?
81.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to IND?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.2%, 35 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 May delays on LAX to IND?
May is the weakest month at 74.7% on time, compared with 87.8% in July. Across the year that is 13 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
- IND to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to IND92.2%
- American Airlines on LAX to IND74.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route64.8%
- ORD to IND, a related route74.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record92.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record85.3%
- American Airlines on-time record74.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LAX to IND and IND to LAX 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.