Carrier route record
WNBNA→LAS
Southwest Airlines · Nashville to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 1,760
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 87%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on BNA to LAS lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,760 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on BNA to LAS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,745 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on BNA to LAS, 2,021 flights
These figures cover 1,760 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on BNA to LAS
Southwest flew 1,760 of the 2,021 flights on BNA to LAS, most of the route. Its 76.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Allegiant at 100.0% to Frontier at 41.7%. Five of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 243 | 79.8% | 87 min | 2.06% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,760 | 76.7% | 47 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 121 min | 0.00% | F+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 41.7% | 63 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 40 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–8am500 flights94.8%
- 8am–11am170 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm258 flights74.9%
- 2pm–5pm258 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm238 flights54.4%
- 8pm–5am336 flights68.9%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.4% on time, against 94.8% 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 500 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BNA to LAS through the year
June is the worst month at 58.4% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 86.0%. 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 169 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.7%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 19,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
55% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 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 19,297 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 94.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.0% 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 roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,587 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 78.7% on time across 1,781 flights, within 2 points 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 1,760 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 LAS
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.0% on time and June 58.4%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,745 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to LAS, every carrier
- Southwest on LAS to BNA, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on BNA to LAS79.8%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.