Route reliability record
BNA→CLT
Nashville to Charlotte
- Flights
- 3,479
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 328 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,479 BNA to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,228 at 80.5% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.6%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 80.5% on time across 2,228 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,419 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.5% on time across 2,228 flights
These figures cover 3,479 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 80.5% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 73.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 416 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 10 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 32 | 87.5% | 47 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 2,228 | 80.5% | 97 min | 1.53% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 787 | 73.9% | 51 min | 1.40% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 416 | 73.4% | 80 min | 3.37% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 50.0% | 101 min | 0.00% | F+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Nashville to Charlotte
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 → CLTNashville to Charlotte | American Airlines | 79.3% | 80.5% | 1.53% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. BNA → CLTNashville to Charlotte | Southwest Airlines | 72.9% | 73.9% | 1.40% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. BNA → CLTNashville to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 70.9% | 73.4% | 3.37% | 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 30 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am656 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am874 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm430 flights82.5%
- 2pm–5pm727 flights67.2%
- 5pm–8pm673 flights70.1%
- 8pm–5am119 flights58.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 88.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 874 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to CLT 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 CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.0%, a wide gap of 30.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.0%
- 8–11am87.2%
- 11am–2pm82.5%
- 2–5pm67.2%
- 5–8pm70.1%
- 8pm–5am58.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 65.6% on time, 18 points below January, the best at 83.4%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 336 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.9%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 61,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. The split is drawn from 60,840 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 25,000 of the 61,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.03%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 328 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 75.1% on time across 3,480 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 3,479 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 CLT 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. January runs 83.4% on time and July 65.6%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,419 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to CLT questions
How often is BNA to CLT delayed?
Roughly 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 21.8% of the 3,479 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 80.5% on time across 2,228 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 73.4%, a gap of 7 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 CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.0%, 30 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 CLT?
July is the weakest month at 65.6% on time, compared with 83.4% in January. Across the year that is 18 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
- CLT to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on BNA to CLT80.5%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to CLT73.9%
- PSA Airlines on BNA to CLT73.4%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record87.5%
- American Airlines on-time record80.5%
- 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 CLT and CLT 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.