Carrier route record
WNFLL→BNA
Southwest Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,400
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on FLL to BNA sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,400 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on FLL to BNA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 57 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,386 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.9%
Every carrier on FLL to BNA, 2,113 flights
These figures cover 1,400 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
Southwest against every carrier on FLL to BNA
Southwest flew 1,400 of the 2,113 flights on FLL to BNA, most of the route. Its 71.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 71.9% to Allegiant at 71.1%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,400 | 71.9% | 52 min | 0.71% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 622 | 71.9% | 72 min | 4.02% | C− |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 91 | 71.1% | 56 min | 1.10% | C |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 51 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–8am145 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am367 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm231 flights72.6%
- 2pm–5pm260 flights60.3%
- 5pm–8pm276 flights63.4%
- 8pm–5am121 flights43.2%
Scale runs 35% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 43.2% on time, against 94.4% 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 367 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on FLL to BNA through the year
June is the worst month at 54.7% on time, 33 points below September, the best at 87.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 132 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.7%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 20,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 20,168 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 94.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
7.8% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.9% on time across 1,399 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,400 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 Southwest on FLL to BNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.9% on time and June 54.7%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,386 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to BNA, every carrier
- Southwest on BNA to FLL, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to BNA71.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.