Carrier route record
AABNA→PHL
American Airlines · Nashville to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,060
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 38%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on BNA to PHL lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,060 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, PSA Airlines, flew 410 at 77.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on BNA to PHL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,032 completed flights
Avg delay
117 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.55%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.5%
Every carrier on BNA to PHL, 2,816 flights
These figures cover 1,060 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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
American against every carrier on BNA to PHL
American flew 1,060 of the 2,816 flights on BNA to PHL, about 38% of it. Its 77.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 81.2% to Frontier at 64.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am337 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am193 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm214 flights73.9%
- 2pm–5pm229 flights61.4%
- 5pm–8pm87 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 61.4% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 337 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on BNA to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 64.1% on time, 30 points below March, the best at 93.9%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.1%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 28,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
52% 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 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 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 27,566 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 9,968 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.55%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.8% on time across 1,059 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,060 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 American on BNA to PHL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,060 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 77.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,032 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to BNA, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on BNA to PHL77.4%
- Republic Airways on BNA to PHL76.2%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to PHL70.8%
- Frontier Airlines on BNA to PHL64.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.