Route reliability record
DEN→BNA
Denver to Nashville
- Flights
- 3,617
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,013 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. 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 3,617 DEN to BNA flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,181 at 79.2% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.0%, against 74.9% 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
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,592 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
79.2% on time across 1,181 flights
These figures cover 3,617 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to BNA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 79.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,118 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,181 | 79.2% | 60 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 318 | 76.8% | 55 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,118 | 72.3% | 54 min | 0.57% | C+ |
United leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN 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 Denver 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. DEN → BNADenver to Nashville | United Airlines | 78.9% | 79.2% | 0.42% | 8am–11am, Mon | UA 1300 17:30 |
| 2. DEN → BNADenver to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 71.9% | 72.3% | 0.57% | 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 47 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am560 flights95.7%
- 8am–11am1,039 flights85.7%
- 11am–2pm479 flights72.0%
- 2pm–5pm611 flights61.9%
- 5pm–8pm773 flights62.8%
- 8pm–5am155 flights49.0%
Scale runs 40% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 49.0% on time, against 95.7% 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 1,039 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN 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 DEN to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 49.0%, a wide gap of 46.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.7%
- 8–11am85.7%
- 11am–2pm72.0%
- 2–5pm61.9%
- 5–8pm62.8%
- 8pm–5am49.0%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 63.7% on time, 23 points below February, the best at 86.5%. 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 353 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.2%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 50,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 to one. The split is drawn from 49,944 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 95.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% 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 1,013 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 74.2% on time across 3,632 flights, within half 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 3,617 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 86.5% on time and June 63.7%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,592 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to BNA questions
How often is DEN 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 25.1% of the 3,617 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to BNA?
United Airlines leads at 79.2% on time across 1,181 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.3%, a gap of 7 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 DEN to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 49.0%, 47 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 DEN to BNA?
June is the weakest month at 63.7% on time, compared with 86.5% in February. Across the year that is 23 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DEN to BNA79.2%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to BNA76.8%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to BNA72.3%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- United Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.3%
- 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. DEN to BNA and BNA to DEN 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.