Carrier route record
WNMSP→BNA
Southwest Airlines · Minneapolis to Nashville
- Flights
- 556
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MSP to BNA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 556 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 549 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.0%
Every carrier on MSP to BNA, 1,777 flights
These figures cover 556 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MSP to BNA
Southwest flew 556 of the 1,777 flights on MSP to BNA, about 31% of it. Its 77.0% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 82.9% 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 | 1,220 | 82.9% | 48 min | 1.80% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 556 | 77.0% | 50 min | 1.08% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 55 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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.
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 45 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am258 flights93.7%
- 8am–11am5 flights—
- 11am–2pm40 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm191 flights62.6%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights49.2%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.2% on time, against 93.7% 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 258 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MSP to BNA through the year
July is the worst month at 63.9% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 88.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. May was the busiest month here, with 61 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.5%, a spread of 24 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MSP to BNA runs when it is late
Southwest on MSP to BNA often beats the schedule: 139 of 549 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 126 late arrivals split 59 under half an hour, 41 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early139 flights25.3%
- Within 15 min284 flights51.7%
- 15–29 min late59 flights10.7%
- 30–59 min late41 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights2.7%
- 2+ hours late11 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 549 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 124 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 23 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MSP to BNA
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 May 2026, 6 hours 35 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 May 2026 | 6 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 December 2025 | 4 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 November 2025 | 3 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 June 2026 | 2 hours 56 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 15 July 2026 | 2 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 6,339 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,339 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. The split is drawn from 6,339 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 93.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.5% on time across 556 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 556 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. 556 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 77.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 549 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 BNA82.9%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
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.