Route reliability record
PHX→BNA
Phoenix to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,361
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,449 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,361 PHX to BNA flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,763 at 72.1% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Saturday flights 79.4%, against 72.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 52 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,342 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.64%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
72.1% on time across 1,763 flights
These figures cover 2,361 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,763 | 72.1% | 44 min | 0.51% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 594 | 71.9% | 67 min | 1.01% | C |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 72.1%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix 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. PHX → BNAPhoenix to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 71.7% | 72.1% | 0.51% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. PHX → BNAPhoenix to Nashville | American Airlines | 71.2% | 71.9% | 1.01% | 5pm–8pm, Sun | — |
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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am457 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am545 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm392 flights65.6%
- 2pm–5pm514 flights59.3%
- 5pm–8pm356 flights61.1%
- 8pm–5am97 flights74.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.3% of the time, against 59.3% for the afternoon window. That is 31 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 545 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX 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 PHX to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 59.3%, a wide gap of 31.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am80.2%
- 11am–2pm65.6%
- 2–5pm59.3%
- 5–8pm61.1%
- 8pm–5am74.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 85.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 232 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 66.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 32,434 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 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,449 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 77.5% on time across 2,366 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,361 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 85.7% on time and May 61.6%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 2,342 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to BNA questions
How often is PHX to BNA delayed?
Roughly 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 27.9% of the 2,361 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to BNA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 72.1% on time across 1,763 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 71.9%, a gap of half a point. 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 PHX to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 59.3%, 31 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 May delays on PHX to BNA?
May is the weakest month at 61.6% on time, compared with 85.7% in September. Across the year that is 24 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to BNA72.1%
- American Airlines on PHX to BNA71.9%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.1%
- American Airlines on-time record71.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to BNA and BNA to PHX 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.