Route reliability record
ATL→BNA
Atlanta to Nashville
- Flights
- 4,258
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 214 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 4,258 ATL to BNA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,369 at 80.6% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.7%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,182 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.6% on time across 3,369 flights
These figures cover 4,258 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 | 3,369 | 80.6% | 56 min | 1.90% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 889 | 76.0% | 69 min | 0.56% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 80.6%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to BNA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Nashville
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → BNAAtlanta to Nashville | Delta Air Lines | 79.1% | 80.6% | 1.90% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 3069 08:31 |
| 2. ATL → BNAAtlanta to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 75.6% | 76.0% | 0.56% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 23 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am229 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am838 flights89.7%
- 11am–2pm692 flights86.4%
- 2pm–5pm724 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm811 flights71.2%
- 8pm–5am964 flights73.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 71.2% for the evening window. That is 23 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 964 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to BNA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.2%, a wide gap of 22.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am89.7%
- 11am–2pm86.4%
- 2–5pm74.5%
- 5–8pm71.2%
- 8pm–5am73.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 64.8% on time, 24 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. July was the busiest month here, with 403 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.3%, a spread of 13 points.
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 50,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 50,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 49,863 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 94.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.62% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.7% 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 an hour, 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 82.7% on time across 4,271 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 4,258 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in BNA after this flight
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 64.8%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,182 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.4% of the 4,258 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 80.6% on time across 3,369 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.0%, a gap of 5 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 94.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.2%, 23 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 64.8% on time, compared with 88.6% in September. Across the year that is 24 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 ATL to BNA80.6%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to BNA76.0%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.
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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.