Carrier route record
DLBNA→SEA
Delta Air Lines · Nashville to Seattle
- Flights
- 516
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on BNA to SEA lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 516 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on BNA to SEA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 510 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.16%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.4%
Every carrier on BNA to SEA, 1,481 flights
These figures cover 516 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on BNA to SEA
Delta flew 516 of the 1,481 flights on BNA to SEA, about 35% of it. Its 79.8% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.8% to Southwest at 38.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 516 | 79.8% | 60 min | 1.16% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 845 | 72.7% | 44 min | 1.18% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 38.7% | 50 min | 0.83% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on BNA to SEA
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.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights83.3%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm31 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm121 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.3% of the time, against 70.6% for the evening window. That is 13 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 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on BNA to SEA through the year
July is the worst month at 71.7% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 93.8%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on BNA to SEA runs when it is late
Delta on BNA to SEA often beats the schedule: 131 of 510 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 103 late arrivals split 50 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 23 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early131 flights25.7%
- Within 15 min276 flights54.1%
- 15–29 min late50 flights9.8%
- 30–59 min late30 flights5.9%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights2.2%
- 2+ hours late12 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 510 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
9 of 61 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. In the other direction, 51 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SEA.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on BNA to SEA
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 June 2026, 15 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 June 2026 | 15 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 October 2025 | 5 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 December 2025 | 4 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 June 2026 | 4 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 November 2025 | 3 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 56% of the 6,213 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 12%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,491 of the 6,213 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,213 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.16% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 1,978 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.0% on time across 516 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 516 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 Delta on BNA to SEA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 516 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 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 510 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to SEA, every carrier
- Delta on SEA to BNA, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on BNA to SEA72.7%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to SEA38.7%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.