Route reliability record
SAN→BNA
San Diego to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,107
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,751 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,107 SAN to BNA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly SAN to BNA: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.8% of the time and Saturday flights 84.2%, against 72.6% 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 47 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,093 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
72.6% on time across 1,107 flights
These figures cover 1,107 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 SAN 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 | 1,107 | 72.6% | 45 min | 1.08% | C |
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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 51 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am352 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am118 flights64.3%
- 11am–2pm217 flights43.8%
- 2pm–5pm75 flights68.0%
- 5pm–8pm165 flights63.4%
- 8pm–5am180 flights94.8%
Scale runs 35% to 100%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 43.8% on time against 94.8% for 8pm–5am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 352 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAN 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 SAN to BNA, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 94.8% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 43.8%, a wide gap of 51.0 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am87.4%
- 8–11am64.3%
- 11am–2pm43.8%
- 2–5pm68.0%
- 5–8pm63.4%
- 8pm–5am94.8%
best all US flightsScale 35% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 59.1% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 87.0%. 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 115 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.7%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 13,378 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.8% 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 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,751 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 72.7% on time across 1,092 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,107 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 87.0% on time and July 59.1%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,093 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to BNA questions
How often is SAN 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 27.4% of the 1,107 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is SAN to BNA compared with the rest of the country?
72.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAN to BNA?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 94.8% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 43.8%, 51 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 SAN to BNA?
July is the weakest month at 59.1% on time, compared with 87.0% in September. Across the year that is 28 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 SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- SAN to SFO, a related route59.5%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- SAN to DEN, a related route78.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.6%
- 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. SAN to BNA and BNA to SAN 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.