Route reliability record
TPA→BNA
Tampa to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,487
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 612 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,487 TPA to BNA flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,772 at 74.9% on time.
Best time to fly TPA to BNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.2%, against 74.4% 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
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,460 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.9% on time across 1,772 flights
These figures cover 2,487 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 TPA to BNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,772 | 74.9% | 51 min | 0.96% | C+ |
| Envoy Air | 715 | 73.2% | 63 min | 1.12% | C |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 74.9%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa to Nashville
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. TPA → BNATampa to Nashville | Southwest Airlines | 74.2% | 74.9% | 0.96% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. TPA → BNATampa to Nashville | Envoy Air | 72.4% | 73.2% | 1.12% | 11am–2pm, 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 38 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am158 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am461 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm585 flights83.4%
- 2pm–5pm425 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm646 flights64.0%
- 8pm–5am212 flights54.8%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.8% on time, against 93.0% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 646 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA 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 TPA to BNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.8%, a wide gap of 38.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.0%
- 8–11am86.9%
- 11am–2pm83.4%
- 2–5pm67.1%
- 5–8pm64.0%
- 8pm–5am54.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 65.3% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 88.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 224 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.2%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 34,407 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 93.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.6% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 612 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 72.7% on time across 2,479 flights, within 2 points 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 2,487 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 88.9% on time and August 65.3%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,460 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to BNA questions
How often is TPA 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 25.6% of the 2,487 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to BNA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 74.9% on time across 1,772 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 73.2%, a gap of 2 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to BNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.8%, 38 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 TPA to BNA?
August is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 88.9% in September. Across the year that is 24 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 TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to BNA74.9%
- Envoy Air on TPA to BNA73.2%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ORD to BNA, a related route69.2%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record73.2%
- 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. TPA to BNA and BNA to TPA 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.