Carrier route record

AABNA→DCA

American Airlines · Nashville to Washington

Flights: 313
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 7%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on BNA to DCA lands a B−, about a point 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 313 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,861 at 75.1% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on BNA to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 296 completed flights

Avg delay

65 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.43%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

73.3%

Every carrier on BNA to DCA, 4,330 flights

These figures cover 313 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on BNA to DCA

American flew 313 of the 4,330 flights on BNA to DCA, about 7% of it. Its 78.4% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.4% to PSA at 65.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 75.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 65.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 387 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on BNA to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	313	78.4%	65 min	5.43%	B−
Republic Airways	1,861	75.1%	62 min	2.90%	B
Envoy Airthin sample	116	73.6%	60 min	5.17%	C−
Southwest Airlines	1,653	72.2%	52 min	1.45%	C
PSA Airlines	387	65.1%	117 min	10.08%	C−

PSA Airlines cancels 10.1% 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.

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 17 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am176 flights84.0%
8am–11am16 flights—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm6 flights—
5pm–8pm6 flights—
8pm–5am109 flights66.7%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.0% of the time, against 66.7% for the overnight window. That is 17 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 176 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on BNA to DCA through the year

Jul–Sep 202582 flights87.2%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights79.1%
Jan–Mar 202691 flights72.8%
Apr–Jun 202648 flights71.7%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 78.4% on time across 313 flights.

American on BNA to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 87.2% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 71.7%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 78 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%. 28 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 4,150 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
17%

47% 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 4,150 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 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 4,150 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 1,494 of the 4,150 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 5.43%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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 costs

7.1% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

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. 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 65.5% on time across 313 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 313 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking American on BNA to DCA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.43% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 296 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures