From LAX to IND with no stops - that's possible right?

November 3, 2009 11:20 AM

Does any airline fly direct from anywhere in the Los Angeles area to Indianapolis?

I've been looking for a little bit here now and I haven't found one airline that's direct to Indianapolis. Am I crazy? There's nothing? Not from Long Beach? Not from Burbank? Not from Ontario? How is that possible? Indianapolis is a pretty big city for the midwest isn't it?

Are there ANY direct options or am I nuts?

posted by rileyray3000 to travel & transportation (20 answers total)

According to a search on Kayak (using the default dates), both Northwest and Delta have direct flights from LAX to IND.
posted by crickets at 11:26 AM on November 3, 2009

Midwest and Northwest/Delta fly direct from LAX to IND.
posted by Floydd at 11:28 AM on November 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Northwest Airlines offers this service on a daily basis.
posted by dersins at 11:28 AM on November 3, 2009

The smaller airports like Burbank, Long Beach, etc. are actually less likely to have direct flights to IND; they're almost certainly only going to fly direct to other West Coast cities and major hubs (e.g., Phoenix, Chicago, Dallas, Denver). LAX is most likely your only option.
posted by scody at 11:29 AM on November 3, 2009

Wow, um...No?

I checked on (my current favorite site) Flightstats.com, by putting in IND arrivals. Further down the page you can choose origin airport from a dropdown list. It appears that the only flights coming in from LAX, Burbank, or Ontario are FedEx flights.

Anyway, IND is not considered a big airport, so I am not that surprised, I guess.
posted by cabingirl at 11:30 AM on November 3, 2009

Depends on the day you fly. There appear to be several options on Fridays: Northwest 2502 (also might be called Delta Delta 2998) and Midwest Airlines 3512 both go from LAX to IND directly, on Fridays (or at least on Friday, November 20).
posted by arco at 11:32 AM on November 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Northwest & Delta are the same airline now, and doing a Kayak search using the default dates does *not* show me any non-stops. I even clicked "Use nearby airports" for LAX.

Indianapolis is not a hub city for much anymore. I think US Airways uses it as a minor hub.

The airport itself says it has direct flights.. http://www.indairport.org/images/IND-Domestic.png

FlightAware shows no non-stop flights either.

I don't think that you're nuts. :) Orbitz, expedia, and travelocity also failed to locate any non-stop flights. It's more likely to be fed by shorter flights from Chicago or Cincinnati.
posted by drstein at 11:37 AM on November 3, 2009

It looks like Friday is the only day for nonstops between LAX and IND. Delta has been cutting back on NWA's direct flights from LA, which were informal support for Midwest's connections.
posted by hwyengr at 11:40 AM on November 3, 2009

It looks like Delta, Northwest and Midwest are all the same flights, NW 2502. FareCompare says NW 2502 flys non-stop form LAX to IND Mon., Thurs. Fri. & Sunday. But, with the Delta merger, all bets are off.
I got 3 airlines with non-stop flights on my first Kayak search, 2 on my second, and now none at all. So, to answer your question: I dunno.
posted by Floydd at 11:49 AM on November 3, 2009

Probably depends on availability, as well.

This random week in January shows a number of nonstop options on Northwest.
posted by dersins at 11:52 AM on November 3, 2009

ITA is pretty good for this. Use the Guest login, month-long search, one-way, and nonstop only.

That gives one flight each way on four days a week:

IND -> LAX on Th/Fri/Su/Mo, 6:45p-8:25p
LAX -> IND on Th/Fri/Su/Mo, 11:20a-6:25p

These flights exist in the schedule out through August 2010 at the moment. I would not be shocked if they were changed to connecting flights at some point before then.

Cincinatti (CVG) has 2 or 3 direct flights on Delta daily. Would probably be faster to drive there than to connect a flight.

Southwest used to fly LAX-IND direct but does not any longer.
posted by smackfu at 12:07 PM on November 3, 2009

Cincy is pretty close.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 12:11 PM on November 3, 2009

Here's the Northwest Timetable. As of October 1, 2009, Flight 1604 flies from LAX to IND on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, departing at 11:18 AM. Flight 1607 flies from IND to LAX on the same days, departing at 6:55 PM.

Here's the Delta timetable. As of November 1, 2009, the flights operated by Northwest are listed in Delta's timetable. It appears that they'll be operating on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday during the week of Thanksgiving.

Indianapolis is much more of a regional hub than a national hub. It used to be the hub for ATA, but we all know how that turned out. When ATA failed, Northwest started to expand their operations here; but then they got bought out by Delta, who already have a hub 110 miles away in Cincinnati.^* It's kind of a shame, since the brand-spankin' new terminal building at IND is as close to being pleasurable as an airport can be.

^*I once flew on Delta through Cincinnati. On my return flight, the plane back to IND was overbooked, so the gate agent came on the intercom and asked for volunteers to be bumped from this flight. Since the airports were so close, though, rather than offering people a seat on the next flight, the airline offered to put them in a cab and drive them to IND.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:25 PM on November 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Northwest 2502 is a MSP - IND flight. It's an even bigger mess now. Delta changed all of the Northwest flight numbers... effective November 1st, 2009.

Still can't find a direct LAX - IND flight. Hrm.
posted by drstein at 12:26 PM on November 3, 2009

I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the various aggregator sites only searched for available seats, so if all direct flights on a given day are sold out it appears the same as if there were no direct flights at all.

But in any case, as others have suggested, I've known a number of cases where people coming into Indianapolis flew into Cincinnati and rented a car there, either because there were no available flights or because the price was better (even after taking the car rental into account). It's about a 1.5 hour drive, give or take.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:34 PM on November 3, 2009

I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the various aggregator sites only searched for available seats, so if all direct flights on a given day are sold out it appears the same as if there were no direct flights at all.

This is true -- and when I searched Kayak there were only a very few seats left. It's conceivable they've already sold out.
posted by crickets at 1:15 PM on November 3, 2009

Oh, one more handy trick: if you're ever looking for information on whether non-stop flights from between two airports exist, go to one of the cities' Wikipedia pages and search in that page for the other. The IND Wikipedia page looks to be a little out of date — they still show AirTran operating that route, but it's either seasonal or suspended — but it's a good place to start your search.
posted by Johnny Assay at 2:17 PM on November 3, 2009

Just to clarify (because I feel dumb!) I had only searched for flights LAX -> IND for today, which was not thorough enough in this case. DevilsAdvocate's point is why I use FlightStats, since it tracks actual flights and not just available seats.
posted by cabingirl at 2:47 PM on November 3, 2009

FWIW, I'm actually flying direct from Indianapolis to LAX on Thursday. Northwest.

CVG is approximately 1.5 hours from Indy, DAY is about 2, CHI is about 3-4.
posted by banannafish at 4:16 PM on November 3, 2009

A note that if you're looking to avoid stopping because you're afraid of flying in the winter and getting snowed in, try changing planes somewhere like Phoenix instead of Chicago or Minneapolis.
posted by mdonley at 11:35 PM on November 3, 2009