Route profile
ATL→BNA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Atlanta to Nashville, 214 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 70% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 12,217 flights. How this is calculated
ATL → BNA arrives on time 81.7% of the time; the return trip, BNA → ATL, arrives on time 85.4% of the time, a 3.7-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
ATL → BNA spends 23.7 minutes on the ground on a 214-mile trip: 15.3 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ATL and 8.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at BNA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Every airline on this route performs about the same, a narrower carrier gap than 96% of 2,692 comparable routes.
Delta Air Lines (81.9% on time) and Southwest Airlines (81.0%) are close together here.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 2,692 in the comparison.
Why ATL → BNA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ATL → BNA cancelled 133 of 12,217 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 92. The reason filed most often was the airline, 53.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 172 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 133 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
71 cancellations, 53.4% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
61 cancellations, 45.9% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
1 cancellation, 0.8% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
133 coded cancellations were recorded on ATL → BNA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
36 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 12,217 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at BNA after arriving from ATL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 34% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 5.7% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.3% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.09% of the time and diverts 0.16% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 12,064 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 36 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 12,217 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ATL → BNA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.8% of the time, against 72.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 19.9 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 98.7% on time from 149 flights
- 7 AM: 94.2% on time from 648 flights
- 8 AM: 91.0% on time from 988 flights
- 9 AM: 89.1% on time from 814 flights
- 10 AM: 86.4% on time from 548 flights
- 11 AM: 88.8% on time from 953 flights
- 12 PM: 85.1% on time from 301 flights
- 1 PM: 86.0% on time from 1,058 flights
- 2 PM: 75.6% on time from 335 flights
- 3 PM: 80.2% on time from 1,111 flights
- 4 PM: 80.8% on time from 691 flights
- 5 PM: 72.3% on time from 478 flights
- 6 PM: 73.6% on time from 933 flights
- 7 PM: 73.8% on time from 651 flights
- 8 PM: 71.4% on time from 723 flights
- 9 PM: 68.9% on time from 657 flights
- 10 PM: 81.4% on time from 776 flights
- 11 PM: 74.2% on time from 403 flights
Why ATL → BNA runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for ATL → BNA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of ATL to BNA: 3.3 times the normal rate at ATL and 4.4 times at BNA. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ATL 3.4% against 1.0%, BNA 4.7% against 1.1%. Flights that did leave ATL in bad weather arrived on time 66.5% of the time, against 80.2% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ATL | BNA |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.4% | 4.7% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.0% | 1.1% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.2% | 79.0% |
| Departures in bad weather | 105,854 | 20,643 |
Southwest Airlines (2.1% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at ATL) cancelled fewer departures from ATL in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ATL
All departures from ATL| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 8,953 | 2.1%below the others | 3.1% |
| Delta Air Lines | 73,919 | 3.5%about level | 3.6% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ATL and BNA, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from ATL on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: ATL (airlines), BNA, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 9,741 | 81.9% | 1.26% | -5 min | 5.6% |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,472 | 81.0% | 0.40% | -7 min | 6.4% |
Delta Air Lines flew 79.8% of the 12,213 flights listed.
Carriers on this route performed within a couple of percentage points of each other.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
DL3069 (8:10 AM) arrived on time 91.9% of the time, 16.7 points more often than DL1490 (6:21 PM) at 75.2%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 9.1 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.7%
- Feb: 87.2%
- Mar: 82.4%
- Apr: 84.2%
- May: 76.1%
- Jun: 79.1%
- Jul: 69.8%
- Aug: 82.2%
- Sep: 88.2%
- Oct: 87.9%
- Nov: 87.0%
- Dec: 82.0%
July is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 18.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 74.5% from 326 flights
- August 2023: 76.2% from 320 flights
- September 2023: 86.9% from 314 flights
- October 2023: 90.7% from 332 flights
- November 2023: 93.0% from 315 flights
- December 2023: 89.5% from 306 flights
- January 2024: 79.7% from 271 flights
- February 2024: 93.5% from 277 flights
- March 2024: 86.3% from 321 flights
- April 2024: 87.7% from 309 flights
- May 2024: 73.7% from 313 flights
- June 2024: 85.3% from 300 flights
- July 2024: 65.4% from 305 flights
- August 2024: 83.4% from 308 flights
- September 2024: 89.1% from 315 flights
- October 2024: 93.0% from 331 flights
- November 2024: 88.9% from 305 flights
- December 2024: 80.6% from 330 flights
- January 2025: 77.9% from 281 flights
- February 2025: 83.3% from 265 flights
- March 2025: 85.1% from 317 flights
- April 2025: 80.5% from 344 flights
- May 2025: 76.6% from 393 flights
- June 2025: 69.0% from 374 flights
- July 2025: 74.5% from 377 flights
- August 2025: 86.4% from 365 flights
- September 2025: 88.6% from 343 flights
- October 2025: 80.7% from 363 flights
- November 2025: 79.4% from 330 flights
- December 2025: 76.6% from 344 flights
- January 2026: 84.3% from 299 flights
- February 2026: 84.7% from 289 flights
- March 2026: 76.5% from 364 flights
- April 2026: 84.7% from 379 flights
- May 2026: 77.6% from 399 flights
- June 2026: 83.8% from 390 flights
- July 2026: 64.8% from 403 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 80.4% against 81.4% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 12,217 ATL → BNA flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed