Route reliability record
FLL→BNA
Fort Lauderdale to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,193
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 793 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,193 FLL to BNA flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 519 at 69.1% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.0%, against 68.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 93 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,143 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
69.1% on time across 519 flights
These figures cover 2,193 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 FLL to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 519 | 69.1% | 73 min | 4.62% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,420 | 68.8% | 53 min | 0.77% | C+ |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 162 | 61.8% | 70 min | 6.17% | D− |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 92 | 61.5% | 75 min | 1.09% | D |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.6% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale 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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → BNAFort Lauderdale to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 68.3% | 68.8% | 0.77% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. FLL → BNAFort Lauderdale to Nashville | Spirit Airlines | 65.9% | 69.1% | 4.62% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. MIA → BNAMiami to Nashville | American Airlines | 65.8% | 66.6% | 1.20% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. MIA → BNAMiami to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 65.6% | 66.3% | 1.05% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am238 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am479 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm335 flights61.7%
- 2pm–5pm302 flights59.1%
- 5pm–8pm507 flights59.3%
- 8pm–5am332 flights53.1%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.1% on time, against 92.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 507 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL 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 FLL to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 53.1%, a wide gap of 39.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.6%
- 8–11am85.2%
- 11am–2pm61.7%
- 2–5pm59.1%
- 5–8pm59.3%
- 8pm–5am53.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 35 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 52.0% on time, 35 points below September, the best at 86.8%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 219 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.3%, a spread of 20 points.
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 41,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 41,022 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 92.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 793 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 73.8% on time across 2,177 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,193 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 86.8% on time and June 52.0%, a swing of 35 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,143 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to BNA questions
How often is FLL to BNA delayed?
About 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 32.0% of the 2,193 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to BNA?
Spirit Airlines leads at 69.1% on time across 519 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 68.8%, a gap of half a point. 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 FLL to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.1%, 39 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 FLL to BNA?
June is the weakest month at 52.0% on time, compared with 86.8% in September. Across the year that is 35 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 FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to BNA69.1%
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to BNA68.8%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to BNA61.8%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record69.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record61.8%
- 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. FLL to BNA and BNA to FLL 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.