Route reliability record
SFO→BNA
San Francisco to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,174
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,969 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,174 SFO to BNA flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly SFO to BNA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 75.8% of the time and Saturday flights 83.1%, against 72.0% 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 53 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,166 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
77.0% on time across 862 flights
These figures cover 1,174 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 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 | 862 | 77.0% | 59 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 312 | 58.4% | 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.
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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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am10 flights—
- 8am–11am395 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm110 flights71.3%
- 2pm–5pm201 flights65.8%
- 5pm–8pm25 flights—
- 8pm–5am433 flights70.8%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 75.8% of the time, against 65.8% for the afternoon window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 433 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to BNA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 75.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 65.8%, a wide gap of 10.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am75.8%
- 11am–2pm71.3%
- 2–5pm65.8%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am70.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
August is the worst month at 57.8% on time, 27 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 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.9%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 to one. The split is drawn from 18,062 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 75.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.43%, 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
7.7% 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 1,969 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 67.9% on time across 1,174 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,174 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 August 57.8%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,166 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to BNA questions
How often is SFO 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 28.0% of the 1,174 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is SFO to BNA compared with the rest of the country?
72.0% 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 SFO to BNA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 75.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 65.8%, 10 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 August delays on SFO to BNA?
August is the weakest month at 57.8% on time, compared with 85.2% in February. Across the year that is 27 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 BNA77.0%
- Southwest Airlines on SFO to BNA58.4%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record77.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record58.4%
- 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. 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.