Carrier route record
AAPHL→IND
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 610
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to IND sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 610 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHL to IND runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 66 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 596 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.30%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.9%
Every carrier on PHL to IND, 1,549 flights
These figures cover 610 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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
American against every carrier on PHL to IND
American flew 610 of the 1,549 flights on PHL to IND, about 39% of it. Its 71.0% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 79.9% to American at 71.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 601 | 79.9% | 74 min | 3.99% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 338 | 78.0% | 66 min | 5.92% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 610 | 71.0% | 71 min | 2.30% | C |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 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–8am—
- 8am–11am157 flights80.1%
- 11am–2pm192 flights70.5%
- 2pm–5pm163 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am98 flights63.8%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.8% on time, against 80.1% for the 8am–11am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 192 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to IND through the year
July is the worst month at 57.9% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 80.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.2%. 26 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 12,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
50% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 12,351 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,243 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.30% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 runs 70.9% on time across 612 flights, within half a point 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. 610 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on PHL to IND
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 610 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 71.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 596 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to IND, every carrier
- American on IND to PHL, the return leg
- Republic Airways on PHL to IND79.9%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to IND78.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.