Carrier route record
DLDTW→BNA
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,403
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 58%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to BNA lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,403 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on DTW 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
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,373 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.7%
Every carrier on DTW to BNA, 2,417 flights
These figures cover 1,403 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DTW to BNA
Delta flew 1,403 of the 2,417 flights on DTW to BNA, most of the route. Its 79.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.5% to SkyWest at 72.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,403 | 79.5% | 61 min | 1.85% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 146 | 77.9% | 73 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 846 | 77.7% | 39 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 22 | 72.7% | 56 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DTW to BNA
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am362 flights88.5%
- 11am–2pm324 flights87.1%
- 2pm–5pm326 flights72.5%
- 5pm–8pm66 flights71.4%
- 8pm–5am325 flights70.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 70.7% for the overnight window. That is 18 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 362 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to BNA through the year
December is the weak month at 53.7% on time, against 92.6% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 139 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.6%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 17,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 8,108 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,182 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
At 456 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.1% on time across 1,404 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,403 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 Delta on DTW to BNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 92.6% on time and December 53.7%, a swing of 39 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,373 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to BNA, every carrier
- Delta on BNA to DTW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to BNA77.9%
- Southwest Airlines on DTW to BNA77.7%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.