Carrier route record
AABNA→CLT
American Airlines · Nashville to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,233
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 63%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on BNA to CLT lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,233 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, PSA Airlines, flew 531 at 77.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on BNA to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,196 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.7%
Every carrier on BNA to CLT, 3,525 flights
These figures cover 2,233 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on BNA to CLT
American flew 2,233 of the 3,525 flights on BNA to CLT, most of the route. Its 79.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 96.2% to SkyWest at 50.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 96.2% | 146 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 11 | 81.8% | 45 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,233 | 79.5% | 97 min | 1.66% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 531 | 77.8% | 62 min | 2.64% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 718 | 76.3% | 50 min | 1.53% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 50.0% | 101 min | 0.00% | F+ |
No carrier stands out. PSA tops the table at 77.8%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am658 flights86.9%
- 8am–11am410 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm292 flights80.4%
- 2pm–5pm372 flights69.5%
- 5pm–8pm501 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am—
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 87.4% of the time, against 69.5% for the afternoon window. That is 18 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 658 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on BNA to CLT through the year
July is the worst month at 63.4% on time, 21 points below April, the best at 84.5%. 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 221 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.1%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 44,000 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
43% 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 44,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 43,540 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 19,000 of the 44,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.1% 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 last an hour and a half, 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 8am–11am 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 2,234 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,233 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 American on BNA to CLT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 84.5% on time and July 63.4%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,196 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to BNA, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on BNA to CLT77.8%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to CLT76.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.