Route profile
BNA→LGA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Nashville to New York, 764 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 12,776 flights. How this is calculated
BNA → LGA arrives on time 78.1% of the time; the return trip, LGA → BNA, arrives on time 78.7% of the time.
BNA → LGA spends 25.1 minutes on the ground on a 764-mile trip: 17.1 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at BNA and 8.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at LGA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
The airline matters unusually much on this route, a wider carrier-to-carrier gap than 90% of 2,692 comparable routes.
Spirit Airlines arrived on time 90.4% of the time, against 72.4% for Delta Air Lines, flying the exact same route.
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 BNA → LGA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
BNA → LGA cancelled 372 of 12,776 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 34. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 45.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 76 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 372 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.
169 cancellations, 45.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
139 cancellations, 37.4% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
64 cancellations, 17.2% 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.
372 coded cancellations were recorded on BNA → LGA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
48 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 12,776 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at LGA after arriving from BNA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 37% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.8% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.0% | Some 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 2.91% of the time and diverts 0.67% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 12,318 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 48 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 12,776 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
BNA → LGA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 88.6% of the time, against 67.5% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 21.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 92.3% on time from 237 flights
- 6 AM: 88.5% on time from 2,223 flights
- 7 AM: 87.3% on time from 422 flights
- 8 AM: 88.5% on time from 175 flights
- 9 AM: 88.5% on time from 1,089 flights
- 10 AM: 80.5% on time from 873 flights
- 11 AM: 77.8% on time from 763 flights
- 12 PM: 78.8% on time from 627 flights
- 1 PM: 78.5% on time from 747 flights
- 2 PM: 72.2% on time from 1,162 flights
- 3 PM: 71.5% on time from 177 flights
- 4 PM: 69.3% on time from 1,220 flights
- 5 PM: 63.0% on time from 661 flights
- 6 PM: 65.3% on time from 315 flights
- 7 PM: 71.7% on time from 1,710 flights
- 8 PM: 67.4% on time from 375 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why BNA → LGA runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
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 BNA → LGA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on BNA → LGA, at 35.8%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 88.6% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 67.5%.
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 LGA: 4.4 times the normal rate at BNA and 4.1 times at LGA. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: BNA 4.7% against 1.1%, LGA 9.0% against 2.2%. Flights that did leave LGA in bad weather arrived on time 63.6% of the time, against 80.9% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | BNA | LGA |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 4.7% | 9.0% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.1% | 2.2% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 63.6% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 79.0% | 80.9% |
| Departures in bad weather | 20,643 | 56,339 |
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. 2 more carriers fly 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% |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,788 | 3.6%about level | 4.3% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 845 | 4.9%about level | 4.7% |
| American Airlines | 1,819 | 4.9%about level | 4.4% |
| Spirit Airlines | 629 | 5.6%about level | 4.9% |
| Republic Airways | 1,292 | 6.6%above the others | 5.3% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from BNA and LGA, 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), LGA, 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 | 4,892 | 79.4% | 3.52% | -5 min | 7.9% |
| Southwest Airlines | 4,619 | 75.0% | 2.01% | -3 min | 7.1% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 919 | 85.7% | 1.96% | -14 min | 6.4% |
| Endeavor Air | 718 | 83.0% | 4.60% | -9 min | 7.8% |
| Delta Air Lines | 706 | 72.4% | 4.39% | -12 min | 14.5% |
| American Airlines | 495 | 76.0% | 3.23% | -8 min | 11.2% |
| JetBlue | 216 | 75.5% | 2.78% | -12 min | 12.0% |
| Spirit Airlines | 211 | 90.4% | 1.42% | -8 min | 3.8% |
Republic Airways flew 38.3% of the 12,776 flights listed. Endeavor Air cancelled 4.60% of its flights here against 1.42% for Spirit Airlines.
Spirit Airlines arrived on time 18.0 percentage points more often than Delta Air Lines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 10.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.1%
- Feb: 83.0%
- Mar: 71.0%
- Apr: 81.2%
- May: 73.1%
- Jun: 70.6%
- Jul: 71.5%
- Aug: 82.8%
- Sep: 83.4%
- Oct: 83.1%
- Nov: 81.0%
- Dec: 77.1%
June is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 12.8 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 71.8% from 365 flights
- August 2023: 85.9% from 381 flights
- September 2023: 75.3% from 393 flights
- October 2023: 87.3% from 428 flights
- November 2023: 85.3% from 388 flights
- December 2023: 82.3% from 360 flights
- January 2024: 74.8% from 330 flights
- February 2024: 87.1% from 316 flights
- March 2024: 80.3% from 328 flights
- April 2024: 84.9% from 390 flights
- May 2024: 77.0% from 402 flights
- June 2024: 79.8% from 383 flights
- July 2024: 80.8% from 404 flights
- August 2024: 80.5% from 381 flights
- September 2024: 90.4% from 366 flights
- October 2024: 92.7% from 382 flights
- November 2024: 89.4% from 349 flights
- December 2024: 79.9% from 340 flights
- January 2025: 79.8% from 315 flights
- February 2025: 81.4% from 289 flights
- March 2025: 77.7% from 336 flights
- April 2025: 82.0% from 352 flights
- May 2025: 69.2% from 369 flights
- June 2025: 67.4% from 324 flights
- July 2025: 65.6% from 324 flights
- August 2025: 81.5% from 296 flights
- September 2025: 84.6% from 301 flights
- October 2025: 67.0% from 349 flights
- November 2025: 66.9% from 334 flights
- December 2025: 68.1% from 325 flights
- January 2026: 86.0% from 309 flights
- February 2026: 80.1% from 292 flights
- March 2026: 55.3% from 366 flights
- April 2026: 76.1% from 340 flights
- May 2026: 72.7% from 283 flights
- June 2026: 61.9% from 286 flights
- July 2026: 64.0% from 300 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 71.7% against 79.9% in the 12 months before — declining by 8.2 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 12,776 BNA → LGA 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