Route reliability record
BNA→SLC
Nashville to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 1,205
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,404 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,205 BNA to SLC flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly BNA to SLC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.7%, against 83.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,195 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
87.1% on time across 933 flights
These figures cover 1,205 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 SLC
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 | 933 | 87.1% | 61 min | 0.64% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 272 | 71.1% | 50 min | 0.74% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on BNA to SLC
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am362 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am9 flights—
- 11am–2pm177 flights76.0%
- 2pm–5pm294 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm358 flights85.9%
- 8pm–5am5 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 76.0% on time against 88.9% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA to SLC 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 SLC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.9% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 76.0%, a wide gap of 12.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm76.0%
- 2–5pm78.8%
- 5–8pm85.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
June is the worst month at 76.4% on time, 17 points below January, the best at 93.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 117 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 78.4%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 11,093 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,506 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% 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.
The 1,404 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 85.0% on time across 1,205 flights, within 2 points 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 1,205 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 SLC 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 93.1% on time and June 76.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,195 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to SLC questions
How often is BNA to SLC delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.5% of the 1,205 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BNA to SLC compared with the rest of the country?
83.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BNA to SLC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 76.0%, 13 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 SLC?
June is the weakest month at 76.4% on time, compared with 93.1% 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
- SLC to BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BNA to SLC87.1%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to SLC71.1%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.1%
- 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 SLC and SLC to BNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BNA to SLC’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.