Route reliability record
BNA→MSP
Nashville to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,776
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 695 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,776 BNA to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,220 at 85.6% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.1%, against 81.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,747 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.6% on time across 1,220 flights
These figures cover 1,776 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 85.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 556 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,220 | 85.6% | 56 min | 1.89% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 556 | 71.5% | 44 min | 1.08% | C |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on BNA to MSP
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Nashville to Minneapolis
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BNA → MSPNashville to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 84.0% | 85.6% | 1.89% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2221 06:00 |
| 2. BNA → MSPNashville to Minneapolis | Southwest Airlines | 70.7% | 71.5% | 1.08% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 34 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am406 flights94.7%
- 8am–11am446 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm148 flights85.6%
- 2pm–5pm261 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm340 flights74.9%
- 8pm–5am175 flights60.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.5% on time, against 94.7% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 446 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to MSP by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On BNA to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.5%, a wide gap of 34.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.7%
- 8–11am84.2%
- 11am–2pm85.6%
- 2–5pm74.6%
- 5–8pm74.9%
- 8pm–5am60.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 70.1% on time, against 90.8% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 180 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.8%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 16,581 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 94.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 695 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.
The return leg runs 81.0% on time across 1,777 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 1,776 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 MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.8% on time and December 70.1%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,747 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to MSP questions
How often is BNA to MSP delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.8% of the 1,776 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 85.6% on time across 1,220 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 71.5%, a gap of 14 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 MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.5%, 34 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 December delays on BNA to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 70.1% on time, compared with 90.8% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- MSP to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BNA to MSP85.6%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to MSP71.5%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. BNA to MSP and MSP 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.