Route reliability record
ORD→BNA
Chicago to Nashville
- Flights
- 5,044
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 409 mi
- Carriers
- 9
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 5,044 ORD to BNA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 550 at 76.4% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 72.7%, against 69.2% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.4% on time across 550 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,910 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
76.4% on time across 550 flights
These figures cover 5,044 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 ORD to BNA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.4% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 60.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,433 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 80.0% | 31 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 46 | 77.3% | 59 min | 4.35% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 550 | 76.4% | 58 min | 2.18% | B |
| Envoy Air | 921 | 76.1% | 60 min | 2.71% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 276 | 74.3% | 64 min | 1.45% | C |
| United Airlines | 1,510 | 69.3% | 78 min | 1.85% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 69.0% | 119 min | 2.07% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,433 | 60.6% | 93 min | 3.56% | D− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.6% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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 Chicago 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. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → BNAChicago to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 78.1% | 79.2% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → BNAChicago to Nashville | Republic Airways | 74.7% | 76.4% | 2.18% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 3. ORD → BNAChicago to Nashville | Envoy Air | 74.0% | 76.1% | 2.71% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. ORD → BNAChicago to Nashville | United Airlines | 68.0% | 69.3% | 1.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2414 10:55 |
| 5. ORD → BNAChicago to Nashville | SkyWest Airlines | 58.4% | 60.6% | 3.56% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 26 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am585 flights82.6%
- 8am–11am915 flights80.3%
- 11am–2pm983 flights69.9%
- 2pm–5pm948 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm808 flights57.0%
- 8pm–5am805 flights57.8%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 82.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 983 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.0%, a wide gap of 25.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.6%
- 8–11am80.3%
- 11am–2pm69.9%
- 2–5pm68.9%
- 5–8pm57.0%
- 8pm–5am57.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 56.5% on time, against 79.8% 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. April was the busiest month here, with 512 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 72.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.7%, a spread of 7 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 122,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 121,996 reported delay minutes.
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 122,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 2.54%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
13.5% 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.
At 409 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 70.9% on time across 5,045 flights, within 2 points 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 5,044 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 79.8% on time and December 56.5%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 4,910 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to BNA questions
How often is ORD 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 30.8% of the 5,044 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 ORD to BNA?
Republic Airways leads at 76.4% on time across 550 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 60.6%, a gap of 16 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 ORD to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.0%, 26 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 ORD to BNA?
December is the weakest month at 56.5% on time, compared with 79.8% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to BNA76.4%
- Envoy Air on ORD to BNA76.1%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to BNA74.3%
- United Airlines on ORD to BNA69.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to BNA69.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to BNA60.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DCA to BNA, a related route75.7%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record80.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to BNA and BNA to ORD 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.