Route reliability record
AUS→BNA
Austin to Nashville
- Flights
- 3,013
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 756 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 3,013 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,009 at 76.1% 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
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,990 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.63%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
76.1% on time across 1,009 flights
These figures cover 3,013 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,009 | 76.1% | 92 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,004 | 76.0% | 49 min | 0.70% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 76.1%, half a point 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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am505 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am515 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm407 flights79.0%
- 2pm–5pm707 flights66.9%
- 5pm–8pm626 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am253 flights66.4%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 65.9% for the evening window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 707 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
June is the worst month at 64.7% on time, 23 points below January, the best at 88.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 284 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.6%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 43%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, 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 20,000 of the 46,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 45,511 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 91.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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.
The 756 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.9% on time across 3,026 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,013 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. January runs 88.1% on time and June 64.7%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,990 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to BNA questions
How often is AUS to 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 24.0% of the 3,013 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to BNA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 76.1% on time across 1,009 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.0%, a gap of half a point. 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 AUS to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.9%, 26 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 AUS to BNA?
June is the weakest month at 64.7% on time, compared with 88.1% in January. Across the year that is 23 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 AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.0%
- 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. AUS to BNA and BNA to AUS 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.