Carrier route record
DLSEA→BNA
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Nashville
- Flights
- 516
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on SEA to BNA lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 516 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's SEA to BNA record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 511 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.6%
Every carrier on SEA to BNA, 1,481 flights
These figures cover 516 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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
Delta against every carrier on SEA to BNA
Delta flew 516 of the 1,481 flights on SEA to BNA, about 35% of it. Its 83.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.0% to Southwest at 60.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 516 | 83.0% | 61 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 845 | 82.1% | 44 min | 0.95% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 60.0% | 39 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on SEA to BNA
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.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 516 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am160 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm14 flights—
- 5pm–8pm340 flights81.2%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8am–11am window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 4 points.
Across the year
Delta on SEA to BNA through the year
July is the worst month at 61.7% on time, 35 points below April, the best at 96.6%. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.0%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on SEA to BNA runs when it is late
Delta on SEA to BNA often beats the schedule: 188 of 511 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 87 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 33 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early188 flights36.8%
- Within 15 min236 flights46.2%
- 15–29 min late28 flights5.5%
- 30–59 min late26 flights5.1%
- 1–2 hours late24 flights4.7%
- 2+ hours late9 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 511 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 83 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 19 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on SEA to BNA
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 December 2025, 3 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 December 2025 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 March 2026 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 August 2026 | 3 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 July 2026 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 2 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 5,315 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,717 of the 5,315 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,315 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.97% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.5% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,978 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.8% on time across 516 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 516 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 Delta on SEA to BNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 516 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 83.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 511 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to BNA, every carrier
- Delta on BNA to SEA, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to BNA82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on SEA to BNA60.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.