Carrier performance at one airport
WN→BNA
Southwest Airlines at Nashville International
- Departures
- 62,867
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #10 of 13
Southwest Airlines at Nashville sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 62,867 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 9,366 at 83.6% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs 2 points behind the 74.8% weighted average across all carriers at BNA. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
62,181 completed departures
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.82%
At BNA, this carrier only
Rank here
#10
Of 13 carriers clearing the floor at BNA
These figures cover 63,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Against the competition
Every carrier at BNA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.6% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 71.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,596 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 9,366 | 83.6% | 79 min | 1.83% | B |
| American Airlines | 9,410 | 77.7% | 101 min | 2.08% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,740 | 76.8% | 80 min | 4.25% | B− |
| United Airlines | 7,009 | 76.2% | 85 min | 1.48% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,977 | 75.5% | 101 min | 2.25% | B |
| Allegiant Air | 2,232 | 75.5% | 97 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 7,044 | 75.4% | 69 min | 3.63% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 2,385 | 75.1% | 70 min | 2.35% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 902 | 74.3% | 97 min | 2.11% | C |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 62,867 | 72.9% | 50 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,428 | 72.4% | 103 min | 5.81% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,162 | 72.0% | 46 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,596 | 71.2% | 76 min | 5.39% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.8% 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.
Route by route
Where Southwest Airlines flies from BNA
Southwest Airlines operates 25 routes out of BNA with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BNA to MCO · Orlando | 2,693 | 72.8% | 53 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| BNA to DAL · Dallas | 2,471 | 75.4% | 55 min | 1.05% | B |
| BNA to DEN · Denver | 2,132 | 70.4% | 54 min | 0.42% | C+ |
| BNA to AUS · Austin | 2,023 | 78.7% | 51 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| BNA to MDW · Chicago | 1,898 | 73.6% | 50 min | 1.21% | C |
| BNA to HOU · Houston | 1,819 | 74.9% | 46 min | 0.77% | C+ |
| BNA to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,783 | 75.6% | 49 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| BNA to PHX · Phoenix | 1,768 | 76.9% | 47 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| BNA to TPA · Tampa | 1,764 | 69.9% | 51 min | 0.85% | C+ |
| BNA to BWI · Baltimore | 1,760 | 76.7% | 53 min | 1.70% | B |
| BNA to DCA · Washington | 1,708 | 68.9% | 52 min | 1.52% | C |
| BNA to MSY · New Orleans | 1,458 | 77.2% | 50 min | 0.69% | B+ |
| BNA to LGA · New York | 1,455 | 68.2% | 55 min | 2.27% | C |
| BNA to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,406 | 74.7% | 55 min | 1.00% | C |
| BNA to MCI · Kansas City | 1,380 | 74.1% | 47 min | 0.72% | C+ |
| BNA to STL · St. Louis | 1,282 | 77.3% | 52 min | 0.78% | B+ |
| BNA to RDU · Raleigh | 1,267 | 73.4% | 48 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| BNA to SAN · San Diego | 1,092 | 72.7% | 44 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| BNA to JAX · Jacksonville | 1,085 | 71.1% | 49 min | 0.55% | C+ |
| BNA to ECP · Panama City | 1,082 | 74.3% | 51 min | 0.55% | C+ |
| BNA to CMH · Columbus | 1,040 | 76.6% | 55 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| BNA to PIT · Pittsburgh | 1,019 | 71.4% | 47 min | 0.49% | C+ |
| BNA to BOS · Boston | 1,002 | 59.1% | 56 min | 1.30% | D |
| BNA to CHS · Charleston | 991 | 71.3% | 49 min | 0.50% | C+ |
| BNA to CLE · Cleveland | 980 | 70.4% | 53 min | 0.51% | C+ |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am7,429 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am11,939 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm11,396 flights74.5%
- 2pm–5pm11,991 flights66.1%
- 5pm–8pm11,701 flights58.9%
- 8pm–5am8,411 flights62.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.9% on time, against 92.6% for the 5am–8am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 11,991 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 58.1% on time, 30 points below January, the best at 87.9%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 5,878 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 842,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 31 to one. The split is drawn from 841,912 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, below the national 1.89% 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.
6.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
62,867 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 87.9% on time and July 58.1%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 62,181 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at BNA
How often is Southwest Airlines at BNA 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 27.1% of the 62,867 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at BNA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.6% on time across 9,366 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 71.2%, a gap of 12 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 Southwest Airlines at BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.9%, 34 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 July delays on Southwest Airlines at BNA?
July is the weakest month at 58.1% on time, compared with 87.9% in January. Across the year that is 30 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
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.