Carrier route record

WNBNA→TPA

Southwest Airlines · Nashville to Tampa

Flights: 1,758
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 71%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on BNA to TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,758 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on BNA to TPA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 53 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,737 completed flights

Avg delay

50 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.97%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.6%

Every carrier on BNA to TPA, 2,483 flights

These figures cover 1,758 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on BNA to TPA

Southwest flew 1,758 of the 2,483 flights on BNA to TPA, most of the route. Its 72.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 81.8% to Southwest at 72.3%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on BNA to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	12	81.8%	70 min	0.00%	B+
Envoy Air	713	80.4%	56 min	0.98%	B+
Southwest Airlines (this page)	1,758	72.3%	50 min	0.97%	C+

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am363 flights90.5%
8am–11am272 flights89.3%
11am–2pm224 flights74.0%
2pm–5pm357 flights62.8%
5pm–8pm388 flights56.5%
8pm–5am154 flights58.6%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.5% on time, against 90.5% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 388 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on BNA to TPA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, May worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 86.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 161 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.8%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 24,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
53%
Carrier
34%
National Airspace System
10%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
1%

53% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 32 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 24,297 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 8,302 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 0.97% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 612 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 runs 75.0% on time across 1,759 flights, within 3 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 1,758 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.

What to do with this

Booking Southwest on BNA to TPA

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.5% on time and May 54.4%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,737 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures