Route reliability record
DCA→BNA
Washington to Nashville
- Flights
- 4,384
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 562 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,384 DCA to BNA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,845 at 81.8% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Saturday flights 82.3%, against 75.7% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.8% on time across 1,845 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,242 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
81.8% on time across 1,845 flights
These figures cover 4,384 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 DCA to BNA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 81.8% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 60.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 399 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,845 | 81.8% | 64 min | 2.44% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 143 | 76.6% | 58 min | 1.40% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,707 | 74.4% | 58 min | 2.23% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 63.8% | 82 min | 4.83% | D− |
| PSA Airlines | 399 | 60.1% | 78 min | 8.77% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.8% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to BNA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington 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. 2 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 29 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am625 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am912 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm703 flights73.7%
- 2pm–5pm772 flights71.2%
- 5pm–8pm722 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am650 flights72.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 92.2% 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 912 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA 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 DCA to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.1%, a wide gap of 29.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am81.3%
- 11am–2pm73.7%
- 2–5pm71.2%
- 5–8pm63.1%
- 8pm–5am72.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 64.9% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 84.0%. 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 386 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 67,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 67,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 67,080 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 92.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.06%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
8.9% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 562 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 71.3% on time across 4,387 flights, 4 points below 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 4,384 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.06% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,242 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to BNA questions
How often is DCA to BNA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.3% of the 4,384 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to BNA?
Republic Airways leads at 81.8% on time across 1,845 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 60.1%, a gap of 22 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 DCA to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.1%, 29 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 DCA to BNA?
July is the weakest month at 64.9% on time, compared with 84.0% in September. Across the year that is 19 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 DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to BNA81.8%
- Envoy Air on DCA to BNA76.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to BNA74.4%
- American Airlines on DCA to BNA63.8%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to BNA60.1%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to BNA and BNA to DCA 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.