Carrier route record
AAPHL→BNA
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,059
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 38%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to BNA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,059 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 910 at 78.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHL to BNA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 58 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,031 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.5%
Every carrier on PHL to BNA, 2,816 flights
These figures cover 1,059 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHL to BNA
American flew 1,059 of the 2,816 flights on PHL to BNA, about 38% of it. Its 71.8% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 86.3% to Frontier at 68.3%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 | 224 | 86.3% | 56 min | 1.79% | A |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 69 | 79.1% | 80 min | 2.90% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 910 | 78.1% | 55 min | 1.10% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 410 | 75.3% | 84 min | 4.39% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,059 | 71.8% | 86 min | 2.46% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 144 | 68.3% | 79 min | 3.47% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.4% 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 American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am251 flights85.8%
- 11am–2pm267 flights75.3%
- 2pm–5pm207 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm152 flights60.1%
- 8pm–5am182 flights65.5%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.1% on time, against 85.8% for the 8am–11am 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 267 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to BNA through the year
December is the weak month at 61.7% on time, against 80.6% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 136 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 76.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.1%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 25,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 24,912 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. 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 77.1% on time across 1,060 flights, 5 points above 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,059 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 American on PHL to BNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,059 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 71.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,031 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to BNA, every carrier
- American on BNA to PHL, the return leg
- Republic Airways on PHL to BNA86.3%
- Southwest Airlines on PHL to BNA78.1%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to BNA75.3%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to BNA68.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.