Route reliability record
HOU→BNA
Houston to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,835
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 670 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,835 HOU to BNA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly HOU to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.4%, against 77.2% 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
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,821 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.2% on time across 1,835 flights
These figures cover 1,835 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 HOU to BNA
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 | 1,835 | 77.2% | 49 min | 0.65% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston 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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HOU → BNAHouston to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 76.7% | 77.2% | 0.65% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. IAH → BNAHouston to Nashville | United Airlines | 74.3% | 74.7% | 0.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2174 07:40 |
| 3. IAH → BNAHouston to Nashville | SkyWest Airlines | 69.3% | 69.9% | 0.80% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | OO 4785 18:05 |
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am380 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am277 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm369 flights73.0%
- 2pm–5pm340 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm319 flights64.7%
- 8pm–5am150 flights71.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.7% on time, against 92.9% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 380 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HOU 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 HOU to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.7%, a wide gap of 28.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.9%
- 8–11am91.2%
- 11am–2pm73.0%
- 2–5pm67.1%
- 5–8pm64.7%
- 8pm–5am71.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 63.6% on time, 27 points below January, the best at 90.7%. 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 174 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.1%, a spread of 12 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 20,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 2%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 to one. The split is drawn from 20,337 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,822 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, 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
5.8% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 670 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 74.9% on time across 1,819 flights, within 2 points 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 1,835 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. January runs 90.7% on time and June 63.6%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,821 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to BNA questions
How often is HOU to BNA delayed?
Roughly 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 22.8% of the 1,835 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is HOU to BNA compared with the rest of the country?
77.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HOU to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.7%, 28 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 HOU to BNA?
June is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 90.7% in January. Across the year that is 27 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 HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- HOU to ATL, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.2%
- 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. HOU to BNA and BNA to HOU 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.