Route reliability record
LGA→BNA
New York to Nashville
- Flights
- 3,785
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 764 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,785 LGA to BNA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,657 at 74.4% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Saturday flights 73.5%, against 70.3% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 74.4% on time across 1,657 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,586 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
74.4% on time across 1,657 flights
These figures cover 3,785 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to BNA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 74.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 66.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,455 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,657 | 74.4% | 63 min | 5.91% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 450 | 70.3% | 84 min | 4.22% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 113 | 69.4% | 186 min | 4.42% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,455 | 66.9% | 61 min | 4.54% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 110 | 57.0% | 97 min | 2.73% | D |
Republic Airways cancels 5.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JFK → BNANew York to Nashville | Republic Airways | 73.4% | 76.5% | 4.05% | 5am–8am, Mon | YX 4710 15:59 |
| 2. EWR → BNANewark to Nashville | United Airlines | 71.1% | 73.2% | 2.84% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1428 07:30 |
| 3. LGA → BNANew York to Nashville | Republic Airways | 70.0% | 74.4% | 5.91% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. LGA → BNANew York to Nashville | Delta Air Lines | 67.3% | 70.3% | 4.22% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 5. JFK → BNANew York to Nashville | JetBlue Airways | 65.9% | 70.8% | 6.95% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 1173 10:37 |
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 29 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am562 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am638 flights80.1%
- 11am–2pm598 flights71.2%
- 2pm–5pm845 flights65.3%
- 5pm–8pm520 flights58.8%
- 8pm–5am622 flights59.4%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 87.5% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 845 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA 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 LGA to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.8%, a wide gap of 28.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.5%
- 8–11am80.1%
- 11am–2pm71.2%
- 2–5pm65.3%
- 5–8pm58.8%
- 8pm–5am59.4%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 84.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 366 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 73.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.5%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 74,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 74,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 74,406 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 87.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.05%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 764 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 70.7% on time across 3,785 flights, within half a point 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 3,785 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 delay figures matter less here than the 5.05% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,586 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to BNA questions
How often is LGA to BNA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.7% of the 3,785 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to BNA?
Republic Airways leads at 74.4% on time across 1,657 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 66.9%, a gap of 8 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 LGA to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.8%, 29 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 October delays on LGA to BNA?
October is the weakest month at 58.5% on time, compared with 84.2% in September. Across the year that is 26 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on LGA to BNA74.4%
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to BNA70.3%
- American Airlines on LGA to BNA69.4%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to BNA66.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on LGA to BNA57.0%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record70.3%
- American Airlines on-time record69.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to BNA and BNA to LGA 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.