Route reliability record
PNS→BNA
Pensacola to Nashville
- Flights
- 963
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 391 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 963 PNS to BNA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly PNS to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.7%, against 77.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 958 completed flights
Avg delay
48 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.5% on time across 963 flights
These figures cover 963 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PNS to BNA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 963 | 77.5% | 48 min | 0.42% | B+ |
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 Pensacola to Nashville
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. VPS → BNAValparaiso to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 88.7% | 89.2% | 0.61% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. PNS → BNAPensacola to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 77.2% | 77.5% | 0.42% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 45 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am259 flights94.6%
- 8am–11am156 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm150 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm209 flights69.7%
- 5pm–8pm167 flights49.7%
- 8pm–5am22 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.7% on time, against 94.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 259 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PNS 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 PNS to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 49.7%, a wide gap of 44.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.6%
- 8–11am91.6%
- 11am–2pm74.7%
- 2–5pm69.7%
- 5–8pm49.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 40% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
July is the worst month at 64.1% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 90.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.1%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 10,371 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 94.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.42%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 391 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 76.9% on time across 963 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 963 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in BNA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 963 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 77.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 958 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PNS to BNA questions
How often is PNS 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 22.5% of the 963 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is PNS to BNA compared with the rest of the country?
77.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PNS to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 49.7%, 45 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 July delays on PNS to BNA?
July is the weakest month at 64.1% on time, compared with 90.2% in September. Across the year that is 26 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 PNS — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- PNS to ATL, a related route88.8%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- PNS to CLT, a related route83.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.5%
- 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. PNS to BNA and BNA to PNS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PNS to BNA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.