Route reliability record
PHL→BNA
Philadelphia to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,852
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 675 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,852 PHL to BNA flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 936 at 76.3% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.3%, against 74.5% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.3% on time across 936 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,763 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.3% on time across 936 flights
These figures cover 2,852 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 PHL to BNA
The three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 236 | 85.3% | 51 min | 2.12% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 936 | 76.3% | 50 min | 1.50% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 519 | 76.2% | 86 min | 6.17% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 46 | 75.0% | 73 min | 4.35% | B− |
| American Airlines | 992 | 70.5% | 83 min | 2.82% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 123 | 65.3% | 82 min | 4.07% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.2% 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.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia 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. PHL → BNAPhiladelphia to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 75.2% | 76.3% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHL → BNAPhiladelphia to Nashville | PSA Airlines | 71.5% | 76.2% | 6.17% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. PHL → BNAPhiladelphia to Nashville | American Airlines | 68.5% | 70.5% | 2.82% | 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 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am348 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am493 flights85.7%
- 11am–2pm654 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm514 flights66.9%
- 5pm–8pm494 flights65.6%
- 8pm–5am349 flights64.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.0% on time, against 90.2% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 654 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.0%, a wide gap of 26.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.2%
- 8–11am85.7%
- 11am–2pm75.6%
- 2–5pm66.9%
- 5–8pm65.6%
- 8pm–5am64.0%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 63.7% on time, against 84.9% in January. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 285 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 50,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 50,475 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 90.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
9.9% 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.
The 675 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 73.3% on time across 2,852 flights, within about 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 2,852 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,763 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to BNA questions
How often is PHL to BNA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.5% of the 2,852 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 PHL to BNA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 76.3% on time across 936 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 70.5%, 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 PHL to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.0%, 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 PHL to BNA?
December is the weakest month at 63.7% on time, compared with 84.9% in January. Across the year that is 21 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PHL to BNA85.3%
- Southwest Airlines on PHL to BNA76.3%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to BNA76.2%
- American Airlines on PHL to BNA70.5%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to BNA65.3%
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record85.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to BNA and BNA to PHL 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.