Carrier route record
WNBNA→MSP
Southwest Airlines · Nashville to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 556
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 556 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on BNA to MSP runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 58 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 550 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.2%
Every carrier on BNA to MSP, 1,776 flights
These figures cover 556 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on BNA to MSP
Southwest flew 556 of the 1,776 flights on BNA to MSP, about 31% of it. Its 71.5% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 85.6% to Southwest at 71.5%.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,220 | 85.6% | 56 min | 1.89% | A |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 556 | 71.5% | 44 min | 1.08% | C |
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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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am41 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am111 flights74.8%
- 11am–2pm133 flights85.5%
- 2pm–5pm43 flights58.1%
- 5pm–8pm53 flights62.3%
- 8pm–5am175 flights60.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 58.1% for the afternoon window. That is 32 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 175 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BNA to MSP through the year
December is the weak month at 58.1% on time, against 88.2% 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.1%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on BNA to MSP runs when it is late
The 157 late arrivals split 74 under half an hour, 53 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early89 flights16.2%
- Within 15 min304 flights55.3%
- 15–29 min late74 flights13.5%
- 30–59 min late53 flights9.6%
- 1–2 hours late20 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late10 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 550 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
50 of 179 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. In the other direction, 28 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MSP.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on BNA to MSP
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 August 2026, 3 hours 44 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 August 2026 | 3 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 April 2026 | 2 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 July 2026 | 2 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 May 2026 | 2 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 August 2026 | 2 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 6,956 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,956 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 to one. The split is drawn from 6,956 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 1.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.0% on time across 556 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 556 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. 556 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 71.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 550 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to MSP, every carrier
- Southwest on MSP to BNA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on BNA to MSP85.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.