Route reliability record

BNA→LGA

Nashville to New York

Flights: 3,805
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 764 mi
Carriers: 5

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,805 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,696 at 72.5% on time.

Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 72.5% on time across 1,696 flights.

On time

71.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,642 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Republic

72.5% on time across 1,696 flights

These figures cover 3,805 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 LGA

The three carriers here are closely matched: 4 points 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.

On-time performance by carrier on BNA to LGA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	178	83.6%	79 min	0.00%	B+
Republic Airways	1,696	72.5%	71 min	4.48%	C−
Southwest Airlines	1,447	70.7%	54 min	2.76%	C
Delta Air Lines	450	68.7%	133 min	4.89%	C−
American Airlinesthin sample	34	60.6%	125 min	0.00%	D+

Delta Air Lines cancels 4.9% 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.

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 27 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am938 flights85.9%
8am–11am475 flights79.6%
11am–2pm638 flights73.3%
2pm–5pm675 flights62.9%
5pm–8pm822 flights59.0%
8pm–5am257 flights64.9%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.0% on time, against 85.9% 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 938 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 31 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, March worst

Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 55.3%. January is the strongest month at 86.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 31 points. March was the busiest month here, with 366 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.9%. 18 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 75,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
31%
Carrier
29%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

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 75,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 75,226 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 85.9% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.63%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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. 10.7% 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 764 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 71.2% on time across 3,805 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 3,805 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 this route

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.63% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 3,642 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

BNA to LGA questions

How often is BNA to LGA delayed?

Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.2% of the 3,805 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on BNA to LGA?

Republic Airways leads at 72.5% on time across 1,696 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 68.7%, a gap of 4 points. 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 LGA?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.0%, 27 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 March delays on BNA to LGA?

March is the weakest month at 55.3% on time, compared with 86.0% in January. Across the year that is 31 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. BNA to LGA and LGA to BNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures