Carrier route record

WNBNA→MSP

Southwest Airlines · Nashville to Minneapolis

Flights: 508
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 30%
Carriers: 2

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

Southwest on BNA to MSP sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 508 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on BNA to MSP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 503 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.98%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

83.3%

Every carrier on BNA to MSP, 1,721 flights

These figures cover 508 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on BNA to MSP

Southwest flew 508 of the 1,721 flights on BNA to MSP, about 30% of it. Its 74.6% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 83.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 86.9% to Southwest at 74.6%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on BNA to MSP
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,213	86.9%	64 min	1.57%	A
Southwest Airlines (this page)	508	74.6%	44 min	0.98%	C+

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 33 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–8am41 flights90.0%
8am–11am55 flights76.4%
11am–2pm179 flights86.4%
2pm–5pm53 flights56.6%
5pm–8pm37 flights70.3%
8pm–5am143 flights62.4%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 56.6% for the afternoon window. That is 33 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 179 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on BNA to MSP through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.August best, December worst

December is the weak month at 58.1% on time, against 88.9% in August. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 61 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.2%. 20 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 54% of the 5,672 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
54%
Carrier
29%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
0%

54% 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 5,672 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 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 5,672 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 90.0% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.9% on time across 509 flights, 4 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 508 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 Southwest on BNA to MSP

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 508 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 74.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 503 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