Carrier route record

DLBNA→LGA

Delta Air Lines · Nashville to New York

Flights: 450
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 12%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on BNA to LGA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 2.2 hours behind schedule. That rests on 450 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,696 at 72.5% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Delta on BNA to LGA runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 89 extra late arrivals.

On time

68.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 425 completed flights

Avg delay

133 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.89%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.8%

Every carrier on BNA to LGA, 3,805 flights

These figures cover 450 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.6% 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

Delta against every carrier on BNA to LGA

Delta flew 450 of the 3,805 flights on BNA to LGA, about 12% of it. Its 68.7% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 71.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 83.6% to American at 60.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 (this page)	450	68.7%	133 min	4.89%	C−
American Airlinesthin sample	34	60.6%	125 min	0.00%	D+

Republic Airways cancels 4.5% 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

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am84 flights86.7%
11am–2pm5 flights—
2pm–5pm84 flights58.8%
5pm–8pm175 flights65.9%
8pm–5am102 flights64.9%

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

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 58.8% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 175 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on BNA to LGA through the year

Jul–Sep 202596 flights73.1%
Oct–Dec 2025202 flights66.5%
Jan–Mar 202674 flights75.8%
Apr–Jun 202678 flights62.8%

Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 68.7% on time across 450 flights.

Delta on BNA to LGA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.8% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 62.8%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 113 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 76.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 57.7%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 18,000 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.

Carrier
43%
Late-arriving aircraft
40%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
0%

40% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 17,655 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 7,655 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 4.89%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 17.6% 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 69.2% on time across 450 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 450 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Delta on BNA to LGA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.89% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.2 hours; 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. 425 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures