Carrier route record

WNPHX→BNA

Southwest Airlines · Phoenix to Nashville

Flights: 1,799
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 76%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on PHX to BNA 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 77.6%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,799 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on PHX to BNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,787 completed flights

Avg delay

45 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.50%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

73.9%

Every carrier on PHX to BNA, 2,369 flights

These figures cover 1,799 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on PHX to BNA

Southwest flew 1,799 of the 2,369 flights on PHX to BNA, most of the route. Its 74.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to BNA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	4	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Southwest Airlines (this page)	1,799	74.5%	45 min	0.50%	C+
American Airlines	566	71.7%	66 min	1.06%	C

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 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–8am497 flights91.3%
8am–11am293 flights80.9%
11am–2pm302 flights69.5%
2pm–5pm323 flights58.6%
5pm–8pm293 flights62.5%
8pm–5am91 flights74.7%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.3% of the time, against 58.6% for the afternoon window. That is 33 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 497 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on PHX to BNA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.August best, May worst

Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 58.2%. August is the strongest month at 88.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 30 points. October was the busiest month here, with 176 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.4%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 21,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
44%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
19%
Security
0%

44% 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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 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 20,535 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 7,438 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs

5.1% 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 45 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. 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 78.2% on time across 1,800 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,799 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.

What to do with this

Booking Southwest on PHX to BNA

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 88.3% on time and May 58.2%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,787 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures