Route reliability record
BNA→PHL
Nashville to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 2,816
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 675 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,816 flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 410 at 77.4% on time.
PSA Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.4% on time across 410 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,745 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
77.4% on time across 410 flights
These figures cover 2,816 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 77.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 910 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 69 | 81.2% | 46 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 410 | 77.4% | 75 min | 4.88% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,060 | 77.1% | 117 min | 2.55% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 223 | 76.2% | 70 min | 4.04% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 910 | 70.8% | 48 min | 0.88% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 144 | 64.0% | 77 min | 3.47% | D− |
PSA Airlines 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
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 38 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am407 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am706 flights86.8%
- 11am–2pm413 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm601 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm522 flights64.5%
- 8pm–5am167 flights50.9%
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.9% on time, against 89.0% 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 706 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
July is the worst month at 68.2% on time, 13 points below January, the best at 81.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 284 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.5%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 55,000 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.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% 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 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 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 54,794 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 89.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.45% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 675 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 75.5% on time across 2,816 flights, within about 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 2,816 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 81.0% on time and July 68.2%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,745 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to PHL questions
How often is BNA to PHL delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.5% of the 2,816 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to PHL?
PSA Airlines leads at 77.4% on time across 410 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 70.8%, 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 PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 50.9%, 38 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 July delays on BNA to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 68.2% on time, compared with 81.0% in January. Across the year that is 13 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
- PHL to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on-time record81.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.4%
- American Airlines on-time record77.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. BNA to PHL and PHL to BNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.