Carrier route record
WNTPA→BNA
Southwest Airlines · Tampa to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,759
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 71%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on TPA to BNA sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,759 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on TPA to BNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,742 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.7%
Every carrier on TPA to BNA, 2,484 flights
These figures cover 1,759 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
Southwest against every carrier on TPA to BNA
Southwest flew 1,759 of the 2,484 flights on TPA to BNA, most of the route. Its 75.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 75.0% to Envoy at 74.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 75.0% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,759 | 75.0% | 50 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| Envoy Air | 713 | 74.1% | 67 min | 1.12% | C |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 43 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am176 flights94.9%
- 8am–11am467 flights86.8%
- 11am–2pm285 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm341 flights67.6%
- 5pm–8pm344 flights64.0%
- 8pm–5am146 flights52.4%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.4% on time, against 94.9% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 467 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on TPA to BNA through the year
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 65.2%. January is the strongest month at 90.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 25 points. March was the busiest month here, with 162 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.8%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 22,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
52% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 21,943 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 94.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.85%, 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 costs
5.8% 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 about 50 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 72.3% on time across 1,758 flights, within 3 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 1,759 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on TPA to BNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 90.0% on time and May 65.2%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,742 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to BNA, every carrier
- Southwest on BNA to TPA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on TPA to BNA74.1%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.