Route reliability record

LAX→BNA

Los Angeles to Nashville

Flights: 2,320
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,798 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,320 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 909 at 85.8% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.8% on time across 909 flights.

On time

81.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,288 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.08%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

85.8% on time across 909 flights

These figures cover 2,320 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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

Which airline is most reliable on LAX to BNA

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 85.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 75.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 414 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to BNA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	69	88.2%	68 min	1.45%	A
Delta Air Lines	909	85.8%	62 min	1.54%	A
Southwest Airlines	928	79.8%	39 min	0.75%	B+
American Airlines	414	75.6%	113 min	0.72%	B+

Delta leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 26 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am630 flights93.0%
8am–11am454 flights75.6%
11am–2pm441 flights67.0%
2pm–5pm117 flights87.6%
5pm–8pm262 flights82.3%
8pm–5am416 flights84.5%

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 67.0% on time against 93.0% 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 630 flights scheduled in it.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, May worst

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 85.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.1%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 27,000 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.

Carrier
46%
Late-arriving aircraft
41%
National Airspace System
14%

41% 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 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 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 26,858 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 12,000 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

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 77.0% on time across 2,317 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,320 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 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. 2,288 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

LAX to BNA questions

How often is LAX to BNA delayed?

Roughly one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.4% of the 2,320 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 85.8% on time across 909 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 75.6%, a gap of 10 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 93.0% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 67.0%, 26 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.

Where to go next

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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures