Carrier performance at one airport
UA→BNA
United Airlines at Nashville International
- Departures
- 7,009
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 6
- Rank here
- #4 of 13
United Airlines at Nashville lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 7,009 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 9,366 at 83.6% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, United Airlines runs about a point ahead of 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
76.2%
6,881 completed departures
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.48%
At BNA, this carrier only
Rank here
#4
Of 13 carriers clearing the floor at BNA
These figures cover 7,009 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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 (this page) | 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 | 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 United Airlines flies from BNA
United Airlines operates 6 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 ORD · Chicago | 1,509 | 71.7% | 97 min | 2.19% | C |
| BNA to EWR · Newark | 1,478 | 75.4% | 89 min | 2.44% | B |
| BNA to DEN · Denver | 1,181 | 79.4% | 86 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| BNA to IAH · Houston | 1,051 | 80.7% | 73 min | 0.76% | B+ |
| BNA to IAD · Washington | 927 | 77.2% | 92 min | 1.19% | B |
| BNA to SFO · San Francisco | 862 | 74.6% | 58 min | 0.70% | C+ |
Flight by flight
United Airlines flight numbers from BNA
5 United Airlines flight numbers leaving BNA flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
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 25 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,319 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am1,860 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm990 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,216 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,587 flights61.6%
- 8pm–5am37 flights73.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.6% on time, against 86.4% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,860 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
June is the worst month at 71.4% on time, 15 points below September, the best at 86.7%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 717 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 35%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 49,000 minutes out of 138,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 138,469 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The sample behind these figures is 7,009 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.7% on time and June 71.4%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 6,881 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
United Airlines at BNA
How often is United 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 23.8% of the 7,009 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on United 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 United Airlines at BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.6%, 25 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 United Airlines at BNA?
June is the weakest month at 71.4% on time, compared with 86.7% in September. Across the year that is 15 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.