Route reliability record
BNA→PHX
Nashville to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,366
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,449 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,366 BNA to PHX flights, of which American Airlines flew 594 at 78.9% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.5%, against 77.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,339 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.9% on time across 594 flights
These figures cover 2,366 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to PHX
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 594 | 78.9% | 117 min | 1.01% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,768 | 76.9% | 47 min | 0.90% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 78.9%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 Phoenix
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 → PHXNashville to Phoenix | American Airlines | 78.1% | 78.9% | 1.01% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. BNA → PHXNashville to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 76.2% | 76.9% | 0.90% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 30 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am783 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am223 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm288 flights79.9%
- 2pm–5pm363 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm474 flights61.8%
- 8pm–5am235 flights65.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.8% on time, against 92.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 783 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to PHX 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 PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.8%, a wide gap of 30.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.0%
- 8–11am87.2%
- 11am–2pm79.9%
- 2–5pm66.5%
- 5–8pm61.8%
- 8pm–5am65.5%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
June is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 18 points below January, the best at 85.1%. 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 232 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.9%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 to one. The split is drawn from 33,595 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,449 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 72.1% on time across 2,361 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,366 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 PHX after this flight
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 85.1% on time and June 66.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,339 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to PHX questions
How often is BNA to PHX delayed?
Roughly 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 22.5% of the 2,366 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to PHX?
American Airlines leads at 78.9% on time across 594 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.9%, a gap of 2 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 PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.8%, 30 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 June delays on BNA to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 85.1% in January. Across the year that is 18 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
- PHX to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on BNA to PHX78.9%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to PHX76.9%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record100.0%
- American Airlines on-time record78.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BNA to PHX and PHX to BNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BNA to PHX’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.