Route reliability record
BNA→FLL
Nashville to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 2,177
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 793 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,177 BNA to FLL flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,406 at 74.7% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.8%, against 73.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,119 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.7% on time across 1,406 flights
These figures cover 2,177 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to FLL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,406 | 74.7% | 55 min | 1.00% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 519 | 74.0% | 75 min | 5.20% | C− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 160 | 70.5% | 79 min | 6.88% | C− |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 92 | 64.8% | 81 min | 1.09% | D |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.2% 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Nashville to Fort Lauderdale
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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BNA → MIANashville to Miami | American Airlines | 78.1% | 79.0% | 1.13% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. BNA → FLLNashville to Fort Lauderdale | Southwest Airlines | 74.0% | 74.7% | 1.00% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. BNA → FLLNashville to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 70.2% | 74.0% | 5.20% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. BNA → MIANashville to Miami | Southwest Airlines | 69.5% | 70.2% | 1.05% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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.
- 5am–8am585 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am294 flights80.9%
- 11am–2pm364 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm385 flights61.9%
- 5pm–8pm309 flights59.7%
- 8pm–5am240 flights58.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.5% on time, against 89.6% 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 585 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to FLL 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 FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.5%, a wide gap of 31.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.6%
- 8–11am80.9%
- 11am–2pm77.5%
- 2–5pm61.9%
- 5–8pm59.7%
- 8pm–5am58.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% 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 61.3% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 84.3%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 218 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.4%, a spread of 23 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 to one. The split is drawn from 34,585 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 89.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.43% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.5% 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 793 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 68.0% on time across 2,193 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,177 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 FLL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.3% on time and July 61.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,119 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to FLL questions
How often is BNA to FLL 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 26.2% of the 2,177 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 FLL?
Southwest Airlines leads at 74.7% on time across 1,406 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 74.0%, 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 FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.5%, 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 July delays on BNA to FLL?
July is the weakest month at 61.3% on time, compared with 84.3% 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
- FLL to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to FLL74.7%
- Spirit Airlines on BNA to FLL74.0%
- JetBlue Airways on BNA to FLL70.5%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.7%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record74.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record70.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BNA to FLL and FLL 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.