Route reliability record
BNA→DAL
Nashville to Dallas
- Flights
- 2,417
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 623 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 2,417 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
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
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,378 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.2% on time across 2,417 flights
These figures cover 2,417 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 DAL
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,417 | 77.2% | 58 min | 1.12% | B |
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am540 flights95.3%
- 8am–11am244 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm495 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm419 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm355 flights65.4%
- 8pm–5am364 flights66.3%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.3% of the time, against 65.4% for the evening window. That is 30 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 540 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 57.0% on time, 32 points below January, the best at 88.5%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 214 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.2%. 12 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 50% of the 32,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 31,526 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 95.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.12% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.50%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% 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 623 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 72.2% on time across 2,406 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 2,417 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 88.5% on time and June 57.0%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,378 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to DAL questions
How often is BNA to DAL delayed?
Roughly 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 22.8% of the 2,417 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BNA to DAL compared with the rest of the country?
77.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BNA to DAL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.4%, 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 June delays on BNA to DAL?
June is the weakest month at 57.0% on time, compared with 88.5% in January. Across the year that is 32 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
- DAL to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.2%
- 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 DAL and DAL 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.