Route reliability record
ATL→BNA
Atlanta to Nashville
- Flights
- 4,242
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 214 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,242 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,361 at 82.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,166 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.0% on time across 3,361 flights
These figures cover 4,242 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 3,361 | 82.0% | 56 min | 1.90% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 881 | 79.1% | 65 min | 0.45% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 82.0%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am194 flights95.1%
- 8am–11am852 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm741 flights86.5%
- 2pm–5pm677 flights76.8%
- 5pm–8pm817 flights73.1%
- 8pm–5am961 flights76.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.1% of the time, against 73.1% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 961 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 74.5% on time, 14 points below September, the best at 88.6%. 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 399 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.4%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 45,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 18,000 of the 45,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 44,825 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% 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 an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 214 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.5% on time across 4,239 flights, 3 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,242 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.6% on time and July 74.5%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,166 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to BNA questions
How often is ATL to BNA delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.6% of the 4,242 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to BNA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.0% on time across 3,361 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 79.1%, a gap of 3 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 ATL to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.1%, 22 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 ATL to BNA?
July is the weakest month at 74.5% on time, compared with 88.6% in September. Across the year that is 14 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
- BNA to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ATL to BNA and BNA to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.