Route reliability record
BNA→PHL
Nashville to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 2,852
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,852 BNA to PHL flights, of which American Airlines flew 992 at 78.0% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.2%, against 73.3% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.0% on time across 992 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,759 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.0% on time across 992 flights
These figures cover 2,852 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 78.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 66.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 937 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 992 | 78.0% | 116 min | 3.23% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 519 | 77.8% | 106 min | 5.97% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 235 | 77.8% | 68 min | 3.83% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 46 | 73.9% | 42 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 937 | 66.3% | 51 min | 1.07% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 123 | 62.7% | 81 min | 4.07% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.0% 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Nashville to Philadelphia
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 → PHLNashville to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 75.5% | 78.0% | 3.23% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. BNA → PHLNashville to Philadelphia | PSA Airlines | 73.2% | 77.8% | 5.97% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. BNA → PHLNashville to Philadelphia | Southwest Airlines | 65.6% | 66.3% | 1.07% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 44 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am408 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am707 flights85.7%
- 11am–2pm433 flights72.2%
- 2pm–5pm634 flights63.7%
- 5pm–8pm479 flights65.4%
- 8pm–5am191 flights46.2%
Scale runs 40% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 46.2% on time, against 90.0% 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 707 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to PHL 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 PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 46.2%, a wide gap of 43.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.0%
- 8–11am85.7%
- 11am–2pm72.2%
- 2–5pm63.7%
- 5–8pm65.4%
- 8pm–5am46.2%
best all US flightsScale 40% 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.
July is the worst month at 64.1% on time, 17 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 80.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.9%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 59,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 59,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 31 to one. The split is drawn from 58,880 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 run at 3.05%, 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
10.1% 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.
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.
The return leg runs 74.5% on time across 2,852 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 2,852 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 PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.05% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,759 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.7% of the 2,852 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to PHL?
American Airlines leads at 78.0% on time across 992 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 66.3%, a gap of 12 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 90.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 46.2%, 44 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 64.1% on time, compared with 81.0% in January. 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
- PHL to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on BNA to PHL78.0%
- PSA Airlines on BNA to PHL77.8%
- Republic Airways on BNA to PHL77.8%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to PHL66.3%
- Frontier Airlines on BNA to PHL62.7%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- American Airlines on-time record78.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.