Route reliability record
LAX→IND
Los Angeles to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 866
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,814 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 866 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 84.1% of the time and Friday flights 86.4%, against 80.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 858 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.0% on time across 507 flights
These figures cover 866 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 | 333 | 91.8% | 60 min | 0.60% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 18 | 83.3% | 93 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 507 | 73.0% | 97 min | 0.59% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 50.0% | 77 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am666 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm45 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm106 flights55.7%
- 8pm–5am45 flights84.1%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.7% on time, against 84.1% 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 666 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to IND 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 LAX to IND, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 84.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.7%, a wide gap of 28.4 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.9%
- 11am–2pm80.0%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm55.7%
- 8pm–5am84.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
July is the worst month at 70.7% on time, 16 points below December, the best at 86.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. May was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.6%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 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. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 67 to one. The split is drawn from 15,331 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, 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
9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.0% on time across 863 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 866 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. 866 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 80.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 858 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 19.8% of the 866 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
80.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 84.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.7%, 28 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 July delays on LAX to IND?
July is the weakest month at 70.7% on time, compared with 86.6% in December. Across the year that is 16 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 IND91.8%
- American Airlines on LAX to IND73.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- ORD to IND, a related route74.1%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record91.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record83.3%
- American Airlines on-time record73.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.