Carrier route record
WNBNA→LGA
Southwest Airlines · Nashville to New York
- Flights
- 1,447
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 38%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest 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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,447 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 Southwest on BNA to LGA runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 69 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,401 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.76%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.8%
Every carrier on BNA to LGA, 3,805 flights
These figures cover 1,447 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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
Southwest against every carrier on BNA to LGA
Southwest flew 1,447 of the 3,805 flights on BNA to LGA, about 38% of it. Its 70.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three 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: 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.
| 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 (this page) | 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
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 34 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am355 flights91.4%
- 8am–11am133 flights79.2%
- 11am–2pm311 flights67.5%
- 2pm–5pm161 flights57.2%
- 5pm–8pm332 flights57.1%
- 8pm–5am155 flights64.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.1% on time, against 91.4% 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 355 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BNA to LGA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 134 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.3%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
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 22,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 22,307 reported delay minutes.
38% 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 8,414 minutes out of 22,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.76%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
8.1% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 69.0% on time across 1,447 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 1,447 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 LGA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.8% on time and March 50.9%, a swing of 38 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,401 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to LGA, every carrier
- Southwest on LGA to BNA, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on BNA to LGA83.6%
- Republic Airways on BNA to LGA72.5%
- Delta Air Lines on BNA to LGA68.7%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.