Carrier performance at one airport
WN→BNA
Southwest Airlines at Nashville International
- Departures
- 61,339
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #8 of 13
Southwest Airlines at Nashville sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 61,339 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 9,316 at 84.9% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs about a point behind the 76.3% 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
75.3%
60,676 completed departures
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.87%
At BNA, this carrier only
Rank here
#8
Of 13 carriers clearing the floor at BNA
These figures cover 61,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Against the competition
Every carrier at BNA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.9% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 71.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,161 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 9,316 | 84.9% | 81 min | 1.74% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,723 | 77.0% | 83 min | 1.43% | B |
| American Airlines | 9,460 | 76.5% | 99 min | 2.33% | B |
| Allegiant Air | 2,267 | 76.4% | 96 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 2,338 | 76.1% | 82 min | 3.51% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 2,182 | 75.4% | 69 min | 2.34% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,103 | 75.3% | 100 min | 2.16% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 61,339 | 75.3% | 50 min | 0.87% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 7,222 | 75.2% | 68 min | 3.53% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 1,411 | 73.4% | 86 min | 5.60% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 860 | 73.3% | 89 min | 1.98% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,415 | 72.8% | 68 min | 3.25% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,161 | 71.2% | 49 min | 1.12% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.6% 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 | 2,587 | 74.2% | 51 min | 0.77% | C+ |
| BNA to DAL · Dallas | 2,417 | 77.2% | 58 min | 1.12% | B |
| BNA to DEN · Denver | 2,148 | 72.3% | 51 min | 0.42% | C+ |
| BNA to AUS · Austin | 2,016 | 79.9% | 53 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| BNA to MDW · Chicago | 1,893 | 76.5% | 51 min | 1.43% | B |
| BNA to PHX · Phoenix | 1,800 | 78.2% | 51 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| BNA to HOU · Houston | 1,793 | 78.0% | 45 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| BNA to BWI · Baltimore | 1,760 | 78.4% | 52 min | 2.05% | B |
| BNA to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,760 | 76.7% | 47 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| BNA to TPA · Tampa | 1,758 | 72.3% | 50 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| BNA to DCA · Washington | 1,653 | 72.2% | 52 min | 1.45% | C |
| BNA to LGA · New York | 1,447 | 70.7% | 54 min | 2.76% | C |
| BNA to MSY · New Orleans | 1,433 | 78.9% | 51 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| BNA to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,399 | 75.9% | 51 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| BNA to MCI · Kansas City | 1,371 | 76.5% | 51 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| BNA to STL · St. Louis | 1,274 | 80.2% | 51 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| BNA to RDU · Raleigh | 1,261 | 75.5% | 47 min | 1.19% | B |
| BNA to JAX · Jacksonville | 1,088 | 75.1% | 50 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| BNA to ECP · Panama City | 1,082 | 77.5% | 51 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| BNA to SAN · San Diego | 1,052 | 74.9% | 45 min | 0.76% | C+ |
| BNA to CMH · Columbus | 1,020 | 79.1% | 52 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| BNA to PIT · Pittsburgh | 1,017 | 73.4% | 49 min | 0.49% | C+ |
| BNA to BOS · Boston | 997 | 60.6% | 53 min | 1.40% | D |
| BNA to CHS · Charleston | 987 | 74.2% | 50 min | 0.61% | C+ |
| BNA to MKE · Milwaukee | 967 | 73.8% | 51 min | 0.93% | 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 31 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am7,863 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am10,974 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm11,169 flights77.7%
- 2pm–5pm11,924 flights68.4%
- 5pm–8pm11,159 flights62.1%
- 8pm–5am8,250 flights64.2%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.1% on time, against 93.5% 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 11,924 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
June is the worst month at 58.5% on time, 29 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. May was the busiest month here, with 5,731 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% 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 754,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 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 753,798 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, 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.
6.4% 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 are the about 50 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
61,339 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 June 58.5%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 60,676 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.7% of the 61,339 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 84.9% on time across 9,316 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 71.2%, a gap of 14 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 93.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.1%, 31 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 June delays on Southwest Airlines at BNA?
June is the weakest month at 58.5% on time, compared with 87.9% in January. Across the year that is 29 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
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) all carriers
- BNA to MCO route record74.2%
- BNA to DAL route record77.2%
- BNA to DEN route record72.3%
- BNA to AUS route record79.9%
- 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. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.