Route reliability record
BOS→BNA
Boston to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,939
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 942 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,939 BOS to BNA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 475 at 73.9% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Saturday flights 74.5%, against 68.8% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 73.9% on time across 475 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,859 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
73.9% on time across 475 flights
These figures cover 2,939 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to BNA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 73.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 64.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,001 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 93.3% | 126 min | 6.25% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 475 | 73.9% | 68 min | 4.00% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 887 | 71.6% | 66 min | 3.83% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 558 | 68.1% | 88 min | 1.61% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,001 | 64.1% | 63 min | 1.20% | D |
Republic Airways cancels 4.0% 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.
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 Boston to Nashville
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. BOS → BNABoston to Nashville | Republic Airways | 70.9% | 73.9% | 4.00% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. BOS → BNABoston to Nashville | JetBlue Airways | 68.9% | 71.6% | 3.83% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 3. BOS → BNABoston to Nashville | Delta Air Lines | 67.0% | 68.1% | 1.61% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. BOS → BNABoston to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 63.3% | 64.1% | 1.20% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 31 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am396 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am798 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm239 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm600 flights62.1%
- 5pm–8pm669 flights53.7%
- 8pm–5am237 flights58.6%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.7% on time, against 84.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 798 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to BNA 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 BOS to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 53.7%, a wide gap of 31.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.8%
- 8–11am79.8%
- 11am–2pm75.8%
- 2–5pm62.1%
- 5–8pm53.7%
- 8pm–5am58.6%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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.
July is the worst month at 62.9% on time, 14 points below January, the best at 76.8%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 330 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 74.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.2%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 62,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 62,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 to one. The split is drawn from 61,762 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.55%, against 1.89% 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 actually costs
12.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 942 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 67.6% on time across 2,940 flights, within about a point 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 2,939 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 BNA 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 76.8% on time and July 62.9%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,859 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to BNA questions
How often is BOS to BNA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.2% of the 2,939 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to BNA?
Republic Airways leads at 73.9% on time across 475 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 64.1%, a gap of 10 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 BOS to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.7%, 31 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 July delays on BOS to BNA?
July is the weakest month at 62.9% on time, compared with 76.8% in January. Across the year that is 14 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
- BNA to BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on BOS to BNA73.9%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to BNA71.6%
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to BNA68.1%
- Southwest Airlines on BOS to BNA64.1%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record93.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to BNA and BNA to BOS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.