Route profile
BNA→DCA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Nashville to Washington, 562 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 23% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 12,843 flights. How this is calculated
BNA → DCA arrives on time 76.7% of the time; the return trip, DCA → BNA, arrives on time 78.9% of the time, a 2.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
BNA → DCA spends 26.8 minutes on the ground on a 562-mile trip: 19.1 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at BNA and 7.8 minutes from touchdown to gate at DCA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why BNA → DCA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
BNA → DCA cancelled 358 of 12,843 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 36. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 64.5% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 56 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 358 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
231 cancellations, 64.5% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
81 cancellations, 22.6% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
46 cancellations, 12.8% 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. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
358 coded cancellations were recorded on BNA → DCA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
47 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 12,843 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DCA after arriving from BNA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 39% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.9% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.9% | 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 2.79% of the time and diverts 0.47% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 12,425 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 47 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 12,843 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
BNA → DCA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 85.7% of the time, against 65.1% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 20.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 91.4% on time from 191 flights
- 6 AM: 81.0% on time from 1,758 flights
- 7 AM: 91.0% on time from 766 flights
- 8 AM: 91.8% on time from 534 flights
- 9 AM: 82.3% on time from 776 flights
- 10 AM: 87.8% on time from 1,002 flights
- 11 AM: 80.3% on time from 759 flights
- 12 PM: 77.2% on time from 703 flights
- 1 PM: 73.1% on time from 365 flights
- 2 PM: too few flights to score
- 3 PM: 72.7% on time from 1,332 flights
- 4 PM: 67.8% on time from 738 flights
- 5 PM: 73.0% on time from 1,156 flights
- 6 PM: 68.2% on time from 1,064 flights
- 7 PM: 62.0% on time from 1,073 flights
- 8 PM: 65.2% on time from 471 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why BNA → DCA runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s 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 BNA → DCA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on BNA → DCA, at 44.5%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 85.7% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 65.1%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of BNA to DCA: 4.4 times the normal rate at BNA and 4.2 times at DCA. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: BNA 4.7% against 1.1%, DCA 9.3% against 2.2%. Flights that did leave DCA in bad weather arrived on time 63.5% of the time, against 78.3% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | BNA | DCA |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 4.7% | 9.3% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.1% | 2.2% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 63.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 79.0% | 78.3% |
| Departures in bad weather | 20,643 | 41,449 |
Of the carriers on this route, Southwest Airlines (4.3% cancelled against 5.4% for the other carriers at BNA) cancelled the fewest departures from BNA in bad weather and Republic Airways (6.6% cancelled against 5.3% for the other carriers at BNA) the most. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from BNA to compare.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at BNA
All departures from BNA| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 10,655 | 4.3%below the others | 5.4% |
| American Airlines | 1,819 | 4.9%about level | 4.4% |
| Republic Airways | 1,292 | 6.6%above the others | 5.3% |
| Envoy Air | 508 | 6.5%about level | 5.1% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from BNA and DCA, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from BNA on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: BNA (airlines), DCA, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 5,022 | 80.5% | 2.25% | -8 min | 6.6% |
| Southwest Airlines | 4,597 | 75.5% | 1.41% | -3 min | 7.1% |
| PSA Airlines | 2,400 | 70.9% | 5.83% | -4 min | 13.6% |
| American Airlines | 575 | 76.3% | 4.35% | -4 min | 6.8% |
| Envoy Air | 248 | 76.7% | 6.05% | -5 min | 6.5% |
Republic Airways flew 39.1% of the 12,842 flights listed. Envoy Air cancelled 6.05% of its flights here against 1.41% for Southwest Airlines.
Republic Airways arrived on time 9.6 percentage points more often than PSA Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| YX4495 Republic Airways | 6:20 PM | 673 | 71.4% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 11.9 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 77.3%
- Feb: 68.5%
- Mar: 74.3%
- Apr: 80.6%
- May: 72.4%
- Jun: 72.7%
- Jul: 67.9%
- Aug: 83.1%
- Sep: 82.1%
- Oct: 84.1%
- Nov: 83.2%
- Dec: 76.4%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 16.2 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 71.2% from 269 flights
- August 2023: 87.1% from 270 flights
- September 2023: 85.1% from 302 flights
- October 2023: 87.2% from 360 flights
- November 2023: 89.3% from 337 flights
- December 2023: 83.6% from 322 flights
- January 2024: 75.0% from 333 flights
- February 2024: 85.5% from 330 flights
- March 2024: 91.0% from 347 flights
- April 2024: 87.6% from 346 flights
- May 2024: 75.7% from 363 flights
- June 2024: 79.8% from 345 flights
- July 2024: 74.7% from 359 flights
- August 2024: 79.6% from 354 flights
- September 2024: 82.0% from 343 flights
- October 2024: 86.0% from 356 flights
- November 2024: 90.0% from 333 flights
- December 2024: 75.7% from 323 flights
- January 2025: 79.5% from 342 flights
- February 2025: 49.5% from 335 flights
- March 2025: 71.9% from 387 flights
- April 2025: 75.9% from 367 flights
- May 2025: 69.1% from 378 flights
- June 2025: 70.4% from 341 flights
- July 2025: 69.5% from 345 flights
- August 2025: 83.4% from 345 flights
- September 2025: 79.5% from 338 flights
- October 2025: 79.5% from 388 flights
- November 2025: 70.9% from 360 flights
- December 2025: 70.2% from 344 flights
- January 2026: 77.4% from 369 flights
- February 2026: 69.0% from 344 flights
- March 2026: 61.1% from 382 flights
- April 2026: 78.6% from 371 flights
- May 2026: 72.5% from 378 flights
- June 2026: 67.9% from 366 flights
- July 2026: 57.0% from 371 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 72.2% against 74.9% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.7 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 12,843 BNA → DCA 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