Carrier route record
AABNA→DCA
American Airlines · Nashville to Washington
- Flights
- 291
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on BNA to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 291 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,845 at 74.1% on time.
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
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 277 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.3%
Every carrier on BNA to DCA, 4,387 flights
These figures cover 291 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on BNA to DCA
American flew 291 of the 4,387 flights on BNA to DCA, about 7% of it. Its 72.9% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 74.1% to PSA at 67.3%. 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 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 Airlines (this page)thin 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.
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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 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am120 flights79.5%
- 8am–11am16 flights—
- 11am–2pm5 flights—
- 2pm–5pm6 flights—
- 5pm–8pm32 flights61.3%
- 8pm–5am112 flights66.7%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.3% on time, against 79.5% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 120 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on BNA to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights79.1%
- Jan–Mar 202691 flights72.8%
- Apr–Jun 202648 flights71.7%
- Jul–Sep 202634 flights57.6%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. 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 72.9% on time across 291 flights.
American on BNA to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 79.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 57.6%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 73 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 90.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.1%, a spread of 30 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on BNA to DCA runs when it is late
American on BNA to DCA often beats the schedule: 85 of 277 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 75 late arrivals split 19 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early85 flights30.7%
- Within 15 min117 flights42.2%
- 15–29 min late19 flights6.9%
- 30–59 min late30 flights10.8%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights5.4%
- 2+ hours late11 flights4.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 277 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 73 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 17 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for American on BNA to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 July 2026, 13 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 July 2026 | 13 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 October 2025 | 7 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 5 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 August 2026 | 4 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 May 2026 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 5,988 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,988 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 to one. The split is drawn from 5,988 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 79.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.81%, against 1.89% 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
9.4% 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 63.8% on time across 290 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 291 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 4.81% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 277 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to DCA, every carrier
- American on DCA to BNA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on BNA to DCA74.1%
- Envoy Air on BNA to DCA71.1%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to DCA68.9%
- PSA Airlines on BNA to DCA67.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.