Route reliability record
ORD→IND
Chicago to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 5,279
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 177 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 5,279 ORD to IND flights, of which Envoy Air flew 547 at 79.2% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to IND: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.2% of the time and Saturday flights 77.2%, against 74.1% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 79.2% on time across 547 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,072 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
79.2% on time across 547 flights
These figures cover 5,279 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to IND
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 79.2% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 68.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 660 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 547 | 79.2% | 56 min | 1.65% | B |
| Republic Airways | 2,781 | 76.5% | 83 min | 3.74% | B− |
| United Airlines | 726 | 69.9% | 67 min | 2.20% | C |
| American Airlines | 565 | 68.9% | 79 min | 5.66% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 660 | 68.2% | 77 min | 6.67% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 6.7% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Indianapolis
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → INDChicago to Indianapolis | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 81.1% | 1.35% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | Envoy Air | 77.9% | 79.2% | 1.65% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | Republic Airways | 73.6% | 76.5% | 3.74% | 5am–8am, Tue | YX 3526 21:30 |
| 4. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | United Airlines | 68.4% | 69.9% | 2.20% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | American Airlines | 65.0% | 68.9% | 5.66% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 16 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am380 flights82.2%
- 8am–11am812 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm910 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm1,150 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm1,016 flights66.6%
- 8pm–5am1,011 flights69.8%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 82.2% of the time, against 66.6% for the evening window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,150 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to IND, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.6%, a wide gap of 15.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.2%
- 8–11am78.7%
- 11am–2pm80.2%
- 2–5pm73.2%
- 5–8pm66.6%
- 8pm–5am69.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 65.8% on time, against 82.4% in September. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 590 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.6%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 101,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 100,534 reported delay minutes.
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 101,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations run at 3.88%, 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
10.0% 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 177 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 76.7% on time across 5,274 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 5,279 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 IND after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.88% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 5,072 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to IND questions
How often is ORD to IND delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.9% of the 5,279 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to IND?
Envoy Air leads at 79.2% on time across 547 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 68.2%, a gap of 11 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 ORD to IND?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.6%, 16 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 ORD to IND?
December is the weakest month at 65.8% on time, compared with 82.4% in September. Across the year that is 17 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to IND79.2%
- Republic Airways on ORD to IND76.5%
- United Airlines on ORD to IND69.9%
- American Airlines on ORD to IND68.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to IND68.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to IND, a related route81.8%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.5%
- United Airlines on-time record69.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to IND and IND to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORD to IND’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.