Route reliability record
BNA→ORD
Nashville to Chicago
- Flights
- 5,045
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 409 mi
- Carriers
- 9
This route 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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 5,045 BNA to ORD flights, of which Envoy Air flew 920 at 73.7% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to ORD: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 74.8%, against 70.9% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 73.7% on time across 920 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,883 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
73.7% on time across 920 flights
These figures cover 5,045 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 73.7% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,433 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 276 | 80.1% | 58 min | 1.81% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 46 | 79.5% | 78 min | 4.35% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 920 | 73.7% | 85 min | 3.48% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 552 | 72.3% | 74 min | 3.08% | C− |
| United Airlines | 1,509 | 71.7% | 97 min | 2.19% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 67.8% | 138 min | 1.03% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 30 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,433 | 66.4% | 105 min | 3.84% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 62.5% | 34 min | 0.00% | D+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.8% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on BNA to ORD
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 Chicago
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BNA → MDWNashville to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 72.7% | 73.6% | 1.21% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. BNA → ORDNashville to Chicago | Envoy Air | 71.1% | 73.7% | 3.48% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. BNA → ORDNashville to Chicago | United Airlines | 70.1% | 71.7% | 2.19% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 1616 12:49 |
| 4. BNA → ORDNashville to Chicago | Republic Airways | 70.1% | 72.3% | 3.08% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 5. BNA → ORDNashville to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 63.9% | 66.4% | 3.84% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
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 26 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,146 flights77.1%
- 8am–11am1,079 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm787 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,005 flights60.9%
- 5pm–8pm958 flights56.4%
- 8pm–5am70 flights55.4%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.4% on time, against 81.7% for the 8am–11am 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 1,146 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to ORD 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 ORD, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 81.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.4%, a wide gap of 26.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am77.1%
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm77.8%
- 2–5pm60.9%
- 5–8pm56.4%
- 8pm–5am55.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 81.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 512 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 136,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 31%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 49,000 of the 136,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 136,112 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.91%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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 actually costs
13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 409 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 69.2% on time across 5,044 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 5,045 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 ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.91% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 4,883 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to ORD questions
How often is BNA to ORD delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.1% of the 5,045 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to ORD?
Envoy Air leads at 73.7% on time across 920 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 66.4%, a gap of 7 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 ORD?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 81.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.4%, 26 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 March delays on BNA to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 64.3% on time, compared with 81.3% in September. Across the year that is 17 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
- ORD to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to ORD80.1%
- Envoy Air on BNA to ORD73.7%
- Republic Airways on BNA to ORD72.3%
- United Airlines on BNA to ORD71.7%
- American Airlines on BNA to ORD67.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on BNA to ORD66.4%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- BNA to ATL, a related route82.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record73.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. BNA to ORD and ORD 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.