Route reliability record
EWR→BNA
Newark to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,867
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 748 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,867 EWR to BNA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 396 at 78.4% on time.
Best time to fly EWR to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.8%, against 75.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,810 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
78.4% on time across 396 flights
These figures cover 1,867 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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
Which airline is most reliable on EWR to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 396 | 78.4% | 52 min | 5.30% | B− |
| United Airlines | 1,390 | 75.1% | 68 min | 2.30% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 81 | 67.9% | 92 min | 3.70% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.3% 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 EWR 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → BNANewark to Nashville | Republic Airways | 74.2% | 78.4% | 5.30% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 2. EWR → BNANewark to Nashville | United Airlines | 73.4% | 75.1% | 2.30% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1428 07:30 |
| 3. JFK → BNANew York to Nashville | Republic Airways | 71.7% | 74.8% | 4.10% | 5am–8am, Mon | YX 4710 15:59 |
| 4. LGA → BNANew York to Nashville | Republic Airways | 70.6% | 74.6% | 5.31% | 8am–11am, Sat | YX 4735 08:40 |
| 5. JFK → BNANew York to Nashville | JetBlue Airways | 68.0% | 71.3% | 4.64% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 1173 13:30 |
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 24 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am202 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am255 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm387 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm553 flights68.0%
- 5pm–8pm139 flights65.6%
- 8pm–5am331 flights69.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.9% of the time, against 65.6% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 553 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 60.8%. February is the strongest month at 90.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 29 points. October was the busiest month here, with 190 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 29,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
35% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 29,310 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 89.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.00%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% 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.
The 748 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 75.0% on time across 1,868 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 1,867 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 3.00% 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. 1,810 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to BNA questions
How often is EWR 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 24.5% of the 1,867 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on EWR to BNA?
Republic Airways leads at 78.4% on time across 396 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 75.1%, a gap of 3 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 EWR to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.6%, 24 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 October delays on EWR to BNA?
October is the weakest month at 60.8% on time, compared with 90.0% in February. Across the year that is 29 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on EWR to BNA78.4%
- United Airlines on EWR to BNA75.1%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.1%
- ORD to BNA, a related route68.6%
- EWR to ATL, a related route77.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.4%
- United Airlines on-time record75.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record67.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EWR to BNA and BNA to EWR 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.