Route reliability record
MSP→BNA
Minneapolis to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,777
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 695 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 4 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 roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,777 MSP to BNA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,220 at 82.9% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.1%, against 81.0% 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
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,744 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.9% on time across 1,220 flights
These figures cover 1,777 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 MSP to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,220 | 82.9% | 48 min | 1.80% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 556 | 77.0% | 50 min | 1.08% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 55 min | 0.00% | F+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 82.9%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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 Minneapolis 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. MSP → BNAMinneapolis to Nashville | Delta Air Lines | 81.4% | 82.9% | 1.80% | 11am–2pm, Wed | DL 2724 06:55 |
| 2. MSP → BNAMinneapolis to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 76.2% | 77.0% | 1.08% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 24 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am593 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am25 flights—
- 11am–2pm272 flights88.5%
- 2pm–5pm462 flights70.8%
- 5pm–8pm124 flights67.2%
- 8pm–5am301 flights76.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.0% of the time, against 67.2% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 593 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.2%, a wide gap of 23.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.0%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm88.5%
- 2–5pm70.8%
- 5–8pm67.2%
- 8pm–5am76.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
December is the weak month at 70.7% on time, against 90.8% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 179 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 11 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 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,980 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,154 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 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.58% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
The 695 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 81.2% on time across 1,776 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 1,777 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 90.8% on time and December 70.7%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,744 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to BNA questions
How often is MSP 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 19.0% of the 1,777 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to BNA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.9% on time across 1,220 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.0%, a gap of 6 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 MSP to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.2%, 24 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 December delays on MSP to BNA?
December is the weakest month at 70.7% on time, compared with 90.8% 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to BNA82.9%
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to BNA77.0%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record0.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to BNA and BNA to MSP 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.