Route reliability record
BNA→ATL
Nashville to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,239
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 214 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 4,239 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,360 at 87.1% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 69 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,166 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.65%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.1% on time across 3,360 flights
These figures cover 4,239 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 BNA to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 74.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 879 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 3,360 | 87.1% | 72 min | 2.02% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 879 | 74.6% | 50 min | 0.23% | C+ |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,043 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am780 flights91.5%
- 11am–2pm747 flights86.1%
- 2pm–5pm742 flights80.1%
- 5pm–8pm839 flights74.0%
- 8pm–5am88 flights69.3%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.5% of the time, against 69.3% for the overnight 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,043 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 78.6% on time, 14 points below September, the best at 93.0%. 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 400 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.7%. 11 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 41,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
45% 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 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 41,278 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 4,242 flights, 3 points below 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 4,239 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 93.0% on time and July 78.6%, 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
BNA to ATL questions
How often is BNA to ATL delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.5% of the 4,239 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.1% on time across 3,360 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 74.6%, a gap of 13 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 BNA to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 69.3%, 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 BNA to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 78.6% on time, compared with 93.0% 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
- ATL to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. BNA to ATL and ATL to BNA 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.