Route reliability record
PHL→IND
Philadelphia to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 1,549
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 588 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,549 PHL to IND flights, of which Republic Airways flew 601 at 79.9% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to IND: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.3%, against 75.9% 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
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,490 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.74%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
79.9% on time across 601 flights
These figures cover 1,549 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 PHL to IND
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.9% of the time; American Airlines manages 71.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 610 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 601 | 79.9% | 74 min | 3.99% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 338 | 78.0% | 66 min | 5.92% | B− |
| American Airlines | 610 | 71.0% | 71 min | 2.30% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 4.0% 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 PHL 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia to Indianapolis
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. PHL → INDPhiladelphia to Indianapolis | Republic Airways | 76.7% | 79.9% | 3.99% | 8am–11am, Tue | YX 4637 18:40 |
| 2. PHL → INDPhiladelphia to Indianapolis | American Airlines | 69.4% | 71.0% | 2.30% | 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 19 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am469 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm343 flights73.0%
- 2pm–5pm257 flights70.5%
- 5pm–8pm363 flights74.4%
- 8pm–5am117 flights65.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.6% of the time, against 65.5% for the overnight 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 469 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 61.2% on time, against 86.2% 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 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.9%. 17 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 49% of the 26,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
49% 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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 25,598 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.74%, against 1.81% 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
8.3% 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 a little over an hour, 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.7% on time across 1,549 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,549 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 3.74% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,490 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to IND questions
How often is PHL 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 24.1% of the 1,549 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to IND?
Republic Airways leads at 79.9% on time across 601 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 71.0%, a gap of 9 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 PHL to IND?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.5%, 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 PHL to IND?
December is the weakest month at 61.2% on time, compared with 86.2% in February. Across the year that is 25 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PHL to IND79.9%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to IND78.0%
- American Airlines on PHL to IND71.0%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ORD to IND, a related route74.2%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.0%
- American Airlines on-time record71.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to IND and IND to PHL 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.