Route reliability record
LAX→BNA
Los Angeles to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,322
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,798 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,322 LAX to BNA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 911 at 85.0% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.2%, against 79.8% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.0% on time across 911 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,294 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.0% on time across 911 flights
These figures cover 2,322 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to BNA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 85.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 74.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 447 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 43 | 88.1% | 94 min | 2.33% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 911 | 85.0% | 61 min | 1.32% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 921 | 77.2% | 37 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 447 | 74.0% | 101 min | 0.45% | C+ |
Delta leads American by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to Nashville
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → BNALos Angeles to Nashville | Delta Air Lines | 83.9% | 85.0% | 1.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 768 06:50 |
| 2. LAX → BNALos Angeles to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 76.7% | 77.2% | 0.65% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 3. LAX → BNALos Angeles to Nashville | American Airlines | 73.7% | 74.0% | 0.45% | 8pm–5am, 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 28 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am636 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am433 flights73.1%
- 11am–2pm456 flights63.3%
- 2pm–5pm125 flights87.6%
- 5pm–8pm254 flights81.3%
- 8pm–5am418 flights83.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 63.3% on time against 91.6% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 636 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX 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 LAX to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 63.3%, a wide gap of 28.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.6%
- 8–11am73.1%
- 11am–2pm63.3%
- 2–5pm87.6%
- 5–8pm81.3%
- 8pm–5am83.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 232 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.8%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 28,051 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.90% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,798 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.0% on time across 2,332 flights, 4 points below 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 2,322 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 92.5% on time and May 72.6%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 2,294 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to BNA questions
How often is LAX to BNA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.2% of the 2,322 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to BNA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 85.0% on time across 911 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 74.0%, a gap of 11 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 LAX to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 63.3%, 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 May delays on LAX to BNA?
May is the weakest month at 72.6% on time, compared with 92.5% in September. Across the year that is 20 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to BNA85.0%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to BNA77.2%
- American Airlines on LAX to BNA74.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record88.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LAX to BNA and BNA to LAX 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.