Carrier route record
WNMSP→BNA
Southwest Airlines · Minneapolis to Nashville
- Flights
- 509
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MSP to BNA lands a B, about a point 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 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 509 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MSP 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
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 502 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.5%
Every carrier on MSP to BNA, 1,723 flights
These figures cover 509 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 MSP to BNA
Southwest flew 509 of the 1,723 flights on MSP to BNA, about 30% of it. Its 78.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 82.6% to SkyWest at 0.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,213 | 82.6% | 49 min | 1.48% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 509 | 78.9% | 54 min | 1.18% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 55 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am210 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm63 flights82.5%
- 2pm–5pm154 flights69.3%
- 5pm–8pm79 flights53.2%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.2% on time, against 94.2% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 210 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MSP to BNA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 61 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 65.7%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 5,698 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 1%Security
55% 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 5,698 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 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 5,698 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 94.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% 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.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.6% on time across 508 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 509 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 MSP to BNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 509 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 78.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 502 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to BNA, every carrier
- Southwest on BNA to MSP, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to BNA82.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.