Carrier route record
AAPHX→IND
American Airlines · Phoenix to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 621
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to IND lands a B+, 3 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 621 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to IND 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 616 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.5%
Every carrier on PHX to IND, 1,530 flights
These figures cover 621 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
American against every carrier on PHX to IND
American flew 621 of the 1,530 flights on PHX to IND, about 41% of it. Its 80.2% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 100.0% to Southwest at 68.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 621 | 80.2% | 76 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 904 | 68.8% | 47 min | 0.66% | 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 25 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–11am306 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm57 flights91.2%
- 2pm–5pm194 flights66.1%
- 5pm–8pm56 flights78.2%
- 8pm–5am8 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 91.2% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 66.1%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 306 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to IND through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 93.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 73.3%. 14 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 69% of the 9,254 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.
- 69%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
69% 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 9,254 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 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 9,254 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, 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 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 1,489 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 82.5% on time across 622 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. 621 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 PHX to IND
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 621 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. 616 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to IND, every carrier
- American on IND to PHX, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to IND68.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.