Route reliability record
BNA→AUS
Nashville to Austin
- Flights
- 3,033
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 756 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 3 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 3,033 BNA to AUS flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,010 at 83.7% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to AUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.1%, against 80.4% 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
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,012 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
83.7% on time across 1,010 flights
These figures cover 3,033 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 BNA to AUS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,010 | 83.7% | 100 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,023 | 78.7% | 51 min | 0.54% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 83.7%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on BNA to AUS
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 Nashville to Austin
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. BNA → AUSNashville to Austin | SkyWest Airlines | 83.3% | 83.7% | 0.50% | 11am–2pm, Sat | OO 4146 07:05 |
| 2. BNA → AUSNashville to Austin | Southwest Airlines | 78.3% | 78.7% | 0.54% | 5am–8am, 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 24 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am813 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am230 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm738 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm313 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm589 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am350 flights68.6%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.5% of the time, against 68.2% for the afternoon window. That is 24 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 813 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to AUS 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 BNA to AUS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 68.2%, a wide gap of 24.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.5%
- 8–11am91.6%
- 11am–2pm83.5%
- 2–5pm68.2%
- 5–8pm68.9%
- 8pm–5am68.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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.
July is the worst month at 67.1% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 90.4%. 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 38,121 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 92.5% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.6% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.5% on time across 3,017 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,033 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 AUS 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 90.4% on time and July 67.1%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,012 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to AUS questions
How often is BNA to AUS 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 19.6% of the 3,033 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to AUS?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 83.7% on time across 1,010 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.7%, 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 BNA to AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.2%, 24 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 AUS?
July is the weakest month at 67.1% on time, compared with 90.4% in September. 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
- AUS to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on BNA to AUS83.7%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to AUS78.7%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.2%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record83.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.7%
- 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. BNA to AUS and AUS to BNA 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.