Route reliability record
BWI→BNA
Baltimore to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,789
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 587 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 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 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,789 BWI to BNA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.2% of the time and Monday flights 82.0%, against 79.3% 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
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,752 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.84%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
79.0% on time across 1,754 flights
These figures cover 1,789 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to BNA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 35 | 94.1% | 46 min | 2.86% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,754 | 79.0% | 55 min | 1.82% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Nashville
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → BNAWashington to Nashville | United Airlines | 80.7% | 81.3% | 0.76% | 8am–11am, Mon (route) | UA 2264 17:55 |
| 2. DCA → BNAWashington to Nashville | Republic Airways | 79.8% | 81.8% | 2.44% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4686 11:34 |
| 3. BWI → BNABaltimore to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 77.6% | 79.0% | 1.82% | 5am–8am, Mon (route) | — |
| 4. DCA → BNAWashington to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 72.7% | 74.4% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. DCA → BNAWashington to Nashville | PSA Airlines | 54.8% | 60.1% | 8.77% | 8am–11am, 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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am254 flights93.2%
- 8am–11am455 flights90.3%
- 11am–2pm243 flights72.4%
- 2pm–5pm252 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm386 flights69.7%
- 8pm–5am199 flights70.0%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.2% of the time, against 69.7% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 455 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI 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 BWI to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.7%, a wide gap of 23.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.2%
- 8–11am90.3%
- 11am–2pm72.4%
- 2–5pm74.4%
- 5–8pm69.7%
- 8pm–5am70.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
August is the worst month at 70.1% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 92.1%. 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 169 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.4%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 20,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 19,886 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,173 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.84% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 587 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 76.8% on time across 1,794 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 1,789 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. February runs 92.1% on time and August 70.1%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,752 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to BNA questions
How often is BWI to BNA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.7% of the 1,789 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is BWI to BNA compared with the rest of the country?
79.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BWI to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.7%, 24 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 August delays on BWI to BNA?
August is the weakest month at 70.1% on time, compared with 92.1% in February. Across the year that is 22 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 BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record94.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.0%
- 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. BWI to BNA and BNA to BWI 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.