Flight profile · American Airlines
AA1296
Indianapolis (IND) to Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) · scheduled 7:45 AM – 8:50 AM
How AA1296 performs
851 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AA1296 arrived on time 82.5% of the time, against 78.1% for all IND → DFW flights, so this departure is 4.4 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 4.1 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 851 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AA1296 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA1296 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
Ask for the position of AA1296 right now, if receivers on the ground are hearing it. Nothing is requested until you press the button.
Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA1296 | 82.5% | 1.18% | -7 min | 6.1% | 851 |
| American Airlines on IND → DFW | 78.4% | 2.15% | -8 min | 8.8% | 5,626 |
| All IND → DFW flights | 78.1% | 2.13% | -7 min | 8.9% | 6,013 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AA1296 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA1296 on IND → DFW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA1296 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA1296 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8.8 hours on the ground at IND, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA1296 pushed back an average of 14 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 7 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into IND just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 729 of 841 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA1296 | 39% | 13% | 10% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often AA1296’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA1296 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IND late, does that still matter by the time it reaches DFW?
AA1296 pushes back an average of 18.0 minutes late and reaches the gate at DFW an average of 13.8 minutes late. The 4.2 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. Its 16.4 minutes on the taxiways at IND is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at DFW, AA1296 spends 15.0 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 1.5 minutes longer than a typical DFW arrival (13.5 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached DFW. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 15,537 departures from IND scheduled in the clock hour AA1296 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DFW (961,642 flights), not just AA1296’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IND
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA1296 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 15,537 departures from IND are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 147,128 across the whole day.
AA1296 is scheduled out of IND at 7:45 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from IND in that hour arrive on time 88.3% of the time against 81.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.4 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from IND to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does AA1296 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 11.8 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes AA1296 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AUS→DFW Austin to Dallas–Fort Worth | March 8, 2026 – April 6, 2026 | 28 | — |
| STT→DFW Charlotte Amalie to Dallas–Fort Worth | March 14–21, 2026 | 2 | — |
| PHX→SNA Phoenix to Santa Ana | December 3, 2025 – February 11, 2026 | 52 | — |
| SNA→PHX Santa Ana to Phoenix | December 3, 2025 – February 11, 2026 | 52 | — |
| LAX→MIA Los Angeles to Miami | December 18, 2025 – January 5, 2026 | 19 | — |
| IAH→ORD Houston to Chicago | November 2, 2025 – December 2, 2025 | 31 | — |
| MIA→BOS Miami to Boston | January 7, 2025 – March 29, 2025 | 82 | — |
| CID→PHX Cedar Rapids to Phoenix | January 8, 2024 – February 14, 2024 | 38 | — |
| PHX→CID Phoenix to Cedar Rapids | January 8, 2024 – February 14, 2024 | 38 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA1296 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
32 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 851 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2782 | American Airlines | 86.9% | 10 min early | 812 |
| AA1506 | American Airlines | 83.4% | 11 min early | 941 |
| AA1296 this flight | American Airlines | 82.5% | 7 min early | 851 |
| AA2456 | American Airlines | 76.1% | 6 min early | 813 |
| AA1505 | American Airlines | 68.4% | 1 min early | 642 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA1296 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 851 records of AA1296 operating IND → DFW, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed