Route reliability record
DAL→BNA
Dallas to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,443
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 623 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,443 DAL to BNA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly DAL to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.1%, against 70.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 66 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,406 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
70.7% on time across 2,443 flights
These figures cover 2,443 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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 DAL 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,443 | 70.7% | 55 min | 1.39% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DAL → BNADallas to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 69.7% | 70.7% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → BNADallas-Fort Worth to Nashville | American Airlines | 64.5% | 66.2% | 2.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 42 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am366 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am492 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm457 flights71.2%
- 2pm–5pm414 flights59.6%
- 5pm–8pm480 flights61.8%
- 8pm–5am234 flights48.5%
Scale runs 40% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 48.5% on time, against 90.9% 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 492 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DAL 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 DAL to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 48.5%, a wide gap of 42.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am83.9%
- 11am–2pm71.2%
- 2–5pm59.6%
- 5–8pm61.8%
- 8pm–5am48.5%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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 50.5% on time, 37 points below September, the best at 87.5%. 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 236 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. The split is drawn from 38,339 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 90.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% 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 623 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.4% on time across 2,471 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,443 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. September runs 87.5% on time and June 50.5%, a swing of 37 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,406 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL to BNA questions
How often is DAL to BNA delayed?
Roughly 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 29.3% of the 2,443 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is DAL to BNA compared with the rest of the country?
70.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAL to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 48.5%, 42 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 DAL to BNA?
June is the weakest month at 50.5% on time, compared with 87.5% in September. Across the year that is 37 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 DAL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- DAL to ATL, a related route78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record70.7%
- 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. DAL to BNA and BNA to DAL 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.