Carrier route record
YXORD→BNA
Republic Airways · Chicago to Nashville
- Flights
- 560
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 11%
- Carriers
- 9
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on ORD to BNA lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 560 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 783 at 74.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD 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
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 551 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.43%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.6%
Every carrier on ORD to BNA, 5,021 flights
These figures cover 560 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Republic against every carrier on ORD to BNA
Republic flew 560 of the 5,021 flights on ORD to BNA, about 11% of it. Its 76.6% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 68.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of nine carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to SkyWest at 61.0%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 74.8% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 61.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,467 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+ |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 560 | 76.6% | 56 min | 1.43% | B |
| Envoy Air | 783 | 74.8% | 60 min | 3.19% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 81 | 71.8% | 71 min | 3.70% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 338 | 70.7% | 60 min | 1.18% | C |
| United Airlines | 1,381 | 70.4% | 74 min | 1.67% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 69.2% | 32 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 382 | 63.8% | 116 min | 1.83% | D |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,467 | 61.0% | 89 min | 3.89% | D− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.9% 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.
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am51 flights82.4%
- 8am–11am200 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm207 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm62 flights67.2%
- 5pm–8pm6 flights—
- 8pm–5am34 flights75.0%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 82.4% of the time, against 67.2% for the afternoon window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 207 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to BNA through the year
December is the weak month at 61.2% on time, against 91.7% 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. December was the busiest month here, with 99 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
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 7,227 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,997 minutes out of 7,227, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,227 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 82.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.43% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.4% on time across 562 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 560 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 Republic on ORD to BNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 560 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 76.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 551 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to BNA, every carrier
- Republic on BNA to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to BNA74.8%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to BNA70.7%
- United Airlines on ORD to BNA70.4%
- American Airlines on ORD to BNA63.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to BNA61.0%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.