Route reliability record
BNA→DCA
Nashville to Washington
- Flights
- 4,387
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 562 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,387 BNA to DCA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,845 at 74.1% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to DCA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.0% of the time and Saturday flights 85.8%, against 71.3% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 74.1% on time across 1,845 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,224 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
74.1% on time across 1,845 flights
These figures cover 4,387 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 74.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 399 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,845 | 74.1% | 65 min | 3.09% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 291 | 72.9% | 80 min | 4.81% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 144 | 71.1% | 58 min | 6.25% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,708 | 68.9% | 52 min | 1.52% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 399 | 67.3% | 121 min | 7.52% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.5% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on BNA to DCA
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.
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 Washington
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BNA → IADNashville to Washington | United Airlines | 76.3% | 77.2% | 1.19% | 8am–11am, Wed (route) | UA 1709 08:30 |
| 2. BNA → BWINashville to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.4% | 76.7% | 1.70% | 8am–11am, Wed (route) | — |
| 3. BNA → DCANashville to Washington | Republic Airways | 71.8% | 74.1% | 3.09% | 8am–11am, Sat | YX 5708 06:05 |
| 4. BNA → DCANashville to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 67.9% | 68.9% | 1.52% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. BNA → DCANashville to Washington | PSA Airlines | 62.2% | 67.3% | 7.52% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 22 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am887 flights81.0%
- 8am–11am700 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm806 flights69.8%
- 2pm–5pm671 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm922 flights61.6%
- 8pm–5am401 flights64.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.6% on time, against 84.0% for the 8am–11am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 922 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to DCA 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 DCA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.6%, a wide gap of 22.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am81.0%
- 8–11am84.0%
- 11am–2pm69.8%
- 2–5pm64.0%
- 5–8pm61.6%
- 8pm–5am64.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% 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 57.0% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 79.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 388 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.7%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 79,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 79,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 78,918 reported delay minutes.
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 27,000 minutes out of 79,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.10%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 562 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 75.7% on time across 4,384 flights, 4 points above 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 4,387 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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.10% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,224 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to DCA questions
How often is BNA to DCA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.7% of the 4,387 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 DCA?
Republic Airways leads at 74.1% on time across 1,845 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.3%, 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 DCA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.6%, 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 DCA?
July is the weakest month at 57.0% on time, compared with 79.5% 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
- DCA to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on BNA to DCA74.1%
- American Airlines on BNA to DCA72.9%
- Envoy Air on BNA to DCA71.1%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to DCA68.9%
- PSA Airlines on BNA to DCA67.3%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- BNA to ATL, a related route82.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.1%
- American Airlines on-time record72.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record71.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BNA to DCA and DCA to BNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BNA to DCA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.