Route reliability record
BNA→EWR
Nashville to Newark
- Flights
- 1,868
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 748 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,868 BNA to EWR flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,391 at 76.0% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.8%, against 75.0% for the route overall.
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
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,807 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
76.0% on time across 1,391 flights
These figures cover 1,868 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to EWR
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,391 | 76.0% | 90 min | 2.30% | B |
| Republic Airways | 396 | 75.9% | 65 min | 5.81% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 81 | 52.6% | 94 min | 3.70% | F− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.8% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Nashville to Newark
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BNA → EWRNashville to Newark | United Airlines | 74.3% | 76.0% | 2.30% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. BNA → JFKNashville to New York | Republic Airways | 74.2% | 77.1% | 3.77% | 8am–11am, Mon | YX 4712 12:00 |
| 3. BNA → JFKNashville to New York | JetBlue Airways | 73.0% | 76.7% | 4.81% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 1174 15:52 |
| 4. BNA → EWRNashville to Newark | Republic Airways | 71.5% | 75.9% | 5.81% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. BNA → LGANashville to New York | Republic Airways | 69.3% | 72.5% | 4.48% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4676 10:37 |
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 31 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–8am368 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am371 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm291 flights77.9%
- 2pm–5pm408 flights63.5%
- 5pm–8pm337 flights58.8%
- 8pm–5am93 flights77.1%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 90.1% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 408 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 89.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 190 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.2%. 14 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. National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 39,000 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.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
53% 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 21,000 minutes out of 39,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 38,529 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 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.10%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 748 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 runs 75.5% on time across 1,867 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,868 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 EWR 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 an hour and a half; 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. 1,807 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to EWR questions
How often is BNA to EWR delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.0% of the 1,868 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to EWR?
United Airlines leads at 76.0% on time across 1,391 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 75.9%, a gap of half a point. 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 EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.8%, 31 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 October delays on BNA to EWR?
October is the weakest month at 57.2% on time, compared with 89.5% in April. 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
- EWR to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on BNA to EWR76.0%
- Republic Airways on BNA to EWR75.9%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.4%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- BNA to DCA, a related route73.3%
- United Airlines on-time record76.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record52.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. BNA to EWR and EWR to BNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.