Route reliability record
SFO→BNA
San Francisco to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,162
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,969 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,162 SFO to BNA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly SFO to BNA: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 76.5% of the time and Saturday flights 81.3%, against 73.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,154 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
79.9% on time across 851 flights
These figures cover 1,162 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
Which airline is most reliable on SFO 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 851 | 79.9% | 53 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 311 | 57.6% | 50 min | 0.32% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO to BNA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
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 1,162 flights.
- 5am–8am10 flights—
- 8am–11am427 flights74.2%
- 11am–2pm100 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm186 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm25 flights—
- 8pm–5am414 flights72.6%
Scale runs 65% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The time of day barely matters here. The 11am–2pm window tops the set at 76.5% and 8pm–5am sits at 72.6%, 4 points apart across 1,162 flights. Pick the departure that suits the trip: whatever is going wrong here is not accumulating over the course of the day. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 427 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
June is the worst month at 59.8% on time, 25 points below February, the best at 85.2%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 114 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.2%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 16,000 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
57% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 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 15,571 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.60%, 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 actually costs
7.2% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,969 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 70.6% on time across 1,162 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,162 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. February runs 85.2% on time and June 59.8%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,154 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to BNA questions
How often is SFO to BNA delayed?
About 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 26.1% of the 1,162 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is SFO to BNA compared with the rest of the country?
73.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to BNA?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 76.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.6%, 4 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 June delays on SFO to BNA?
June is the weakest month at 59.8% on time, compared with 85.2% in February. Across the year that is 25 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to BNA79.9%
- Southwest Airlines on SFO to BNA57.6%
- SFO to LAX, a related route73.9%
- ORD to BNA, a related route68.6%
- SFO to SEA, a related route73.7%
- United Airlines on-time record79.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record57.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SFO to BNA and BNA to SFO 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.