Route reliability record
BNA→JFK
Nashville to New York
- Flights
- 1,470
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 765 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,470 BNA to JFK flights, of which Republic Airways flew 929 at 77.1% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to JFK: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.3%, against 77.0% 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,402 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.15%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
77.1% on time across 929 flights
These figures cover 1,470 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 JFK
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 929 | 77.1% | 67 min | 3.77% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 541 | 76.7% | 63 min | 4.81% | B− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.8% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on BNA to JFK
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Nashville to New York
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–8am284 flights86.1%
- 8am–11am343 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm465 flights77.2%
- 2pm–5pm307 flights60.8%
- 5pm–8pm71 flights55.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 87.3% 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 465 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 60.4% on time, 29 points below September, the best at 89.4%. 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 157 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.9%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 21,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%National Airspace System
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% 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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 21,284 reported delay minutes.
39% 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 8,397 minutes out of 21,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.15%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
8.9% 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 765 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 73.5% on time across 1,466 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,470 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.15% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,402 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to JFK questions
How often is BNA to JFK delayed?
Roughly 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 23.0% of the 1,470 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to JFK?
Republic Airways leads at 77.1% on time across 929 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 76.7%, 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 JFK?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.9%, 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 JFK?
July is the weakest month at 60.4% on time, compared with 89.4% in September. Across the year that is 29 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
- JFK to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on BNA to JFK77.1%
- JetBlue Airways on BNA to JFK76.7%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.4%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- BNA to DCA, a related route73.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.1%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record76.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BNA to JFK and JFK 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.