Carrier route record
AAPHX→BNA
American Airlines · Phoenix to Nashville
- Flights
- 566
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 566 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHX to BNA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 59 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 559 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.9%
Every carrier on PHX to BNA, 2,369 flights
These figures cover 566 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 PHX to BNA
American flew 566 of the 2,369 flights on PHX to BNA, about 24% of it. Its 71.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 100.0% to American at 71.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,799 | 74.5% | 45 min | 0.50% | C+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 566 | 71.7% | 66 min | 1.06% | C |
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am174 flights76.4%
- 11am–2pm89 flights69.0%
- 2pm–5pm237 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm63 flights78.7%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 78.7% on time. The full set of windows spans 12 points.
Across the year
American on PHX to BNA through the year
January is the weak month at 60.5% on time, against 86.4% in February. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 76.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.2%. 8 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 65% of the 10,000 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.
- 65%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
65% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 65 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 10,424 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
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. 10.9% 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 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. 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 79.1% on time across 566 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 566 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 PHX to BNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 566 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 71.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 559 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to BNA, every carrier
- American on BNA to PHX, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to BNA74.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) 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.