Carrier route record
WNBNA→DCA
Southwest Airlines · Nashville to Washington
- Flights
- 1,708
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,708 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,845 at 74.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on BNA to DCA runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 84 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,666 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.3%
Every carrier on BNA to DCA, 4,387 flights
These figures cover 1,708 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on BNA to DCA
Southwest flew 1,708 of the 4,387 flights on BNA to DCA, about 39% of it. Its 68.9% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 71.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 74.1% to PSA at 67.3%. Two 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 Airlinesthin sample | 291 | 72.9% | 80 min | 4.81% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 144 | 71.1% | 58 min | 6.25% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 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 Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am249 flights82.7%
- 8am–11am361 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm380 flights63.7%
- 2pm–5pm324 flights59.9%
- 5pm–8pm158 flights54.6%
- 8pm–5am236 flights62.0%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.6% on time, against 83.3% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 380 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BNA to DCA through the year
July is the worst month at 43.9% on time, 41 points below January, the best at 84.4%. 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 153 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 62.5%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on BNA to DCA runs when it is late
The 518 late arrivals split 203 under half an hour, 176 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 139 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early337 flights20.2%
- Within 15 min811 flights48.7%
- 15–29 min late203 flights12.2%
- 30–59 min late176 flights10.6%
- 1–2 hours late100 flights6.0%
- 2+ hours late39 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,666 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
110 of 514 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 114 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 Southwest on BNA to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 August 2026, 6 hours 14 minutes behind schedule. The five worst days are spread across August, December, July and June, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 August 2026 | 6 hours 14 minutes | None reported |
| 21 December 2025 | 5 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 July 2026 | 4 hours 33 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 June 2026 | 4 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 June 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
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 26,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 to one. The split is drawn from 26,300 reported delay minutes.
37% 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 9,621 minutes out of 26,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.94%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 50 minutes, 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.4% on time across 1,707 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,708 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 Southwest on BNA to DCA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 84.4% on time and July 43.9%, a swing of 41 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,666 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to DCA, every carrier
- Southwest on DCA to BNA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on BNA to DCA74.1%
- American Airlines on BNA to DCA72.9%
- Envoy Air on BNA to DCA71.1%
- PSA Airlines on BNA to DCA67.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.