Carrier route record
WNLAX→BNA
Southwest Airlines · Los Angeles to Nashville
- Flights
- 928
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 40%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAX to BNA lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 40 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 928 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 909 at 85.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on LAX to BNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 917 completed flights
Avg delay
39 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.6%
Every carrier on LAX to BNA, 2,320 flights
These figures cover 928 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on LAX to BNA
Southwest flew 928 of the 2,320 flights on LAX to BNA, about 40% of it. Its 79.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 88.2% to American at 75.6%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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.
| 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 (this page) | 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
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 40 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am314 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am70 flights75.4%
- 11am–2pm165 flights51.2%
- 2pm–5pm14 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am365 flights83.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. 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 51.2% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAX to BNA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 95.3% 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 90 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.5%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
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 7,138 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
38% 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 7,138 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 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 7,138 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, 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 2,888 of the 7,138 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.7% 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 70.7% on time across 927 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 928 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on LAX to BNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 928 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 917 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to BNA, every carrier
- Southwest on BNA to LAX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to BNA85.8%
- American Airlines on LAX to BNA75.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.