Carrier route record
AACLT→BNA
American Airlines · Charlotte to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,234
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 63%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to BNA sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,234 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, PSA Airlines, flew 531 at 80.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to BNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,199 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.1%
Every carrier on CLT to BNA, 3,525 flights
These figures cover 2,234 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to BNA
American flew 2,234 of the 3,525 flights on CLT to BNA, most of the route. Its 75.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to American at 75.1%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 11 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 84.6% | 78 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 219 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 531 | 80.7% | 58 min | 2.07% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 717 | 75.2% | 49 min | 1.67% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,234 | 75.1% | 71 min | 1.52% | B |
No carrier stands out. PSA tops the table at 80.7%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am136 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am327 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm359 flights76.6%
- 2pm–5pm356 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm446 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am610 flights69.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 68.4% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 610 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to BNA through the year
July is the worst month at 59.9% on time, 25 points below January, the best at 84.7%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 221 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 39,000 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.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
56% 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 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 38,879 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 90.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 328 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.5% on time across 2,233 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,234 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 American on CLT to BNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 84.7% on time and July 59.9%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,199 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to BNA, every carrier
- American on BNA to CLT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CLT to BNA80.7%
- Southwest Airlines on CLT to BNA75.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.