Route profile
BNA→MSP
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Nashville to Minneapolis, 695 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 87% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 5,174 flights. How this is calculated
BNA → MSP arrives on time 84.9% of the time; the return trip, MSP → BNA, arrives on time 82.3% of the time, a 2.6-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
BNA → MSP spends 21.6 minutes on the ground on a 695-mile trip: 15.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at BNA and 6.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at MSP.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
On-time performance swings unusually widely by time of day here, wider than 97% of 4,023 comparable routes.
93.8% on time for 5–9 AM departures, against 58.2% for 9 PM–5 AM.
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 4,023 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
27 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 5,174 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at MSP after arriving from BNA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 28% | High risk |
| 45 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 9.1% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.6% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 3.0% | 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 0.85% of the time and diverts 0.08% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 5,126 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 27 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 5,174 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
BNA → MSP flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 93.8% of the time, against 58.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 35.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 95.2% on time from 1,033 flights
- 7 AM to 9 AM: too few flights to score
- 10 AM: 89.6% on time from 965 flights
- 11 AM: 84.6% on time from 130 flights
- 12 PM: 90.0% on time from 353 flights
- 1 PM: 81.3% on time from 274 flights
- 2 PM: 81.1% on time from 185 flights
- 3 PM: 81.5% on time from 409 flights
- 4 PM: 78.4% on time from 205 flights
- 5 PM: too few flights to score
- 6 PM: 79.4% on time from 937 flights
- 7 PM to 9 PM: too few flights to score
- 10 PM: 61.7% on time from 123 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why BNA → MSP 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
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for BNA → MSP. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on BNA → MSP, at 46.3%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 93.8% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 58.2%.
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 | 3,807 | 87.4% | 0.95% | -12 min | 4.5% |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,362 | 78.0% | 0.59% | -3 min | 5.5% |
Delta Air Lines flew 73.7% of the 5,169 flights listed.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 9.4 percentage points more often than Southwest 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2221 Delta Air Lines | 6:00 AM | 1,127 | 95.2% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 4.1 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 86.5%
- Feb: 88.2%
- Mar: 86.6%
- Apr: 87.5%
- May: 80.6%
- Jun: 73.9%
- Jul: 76.5%
- Aug: 86.2%
- Sep: 90.9%
- Oct: 91.5%
- Nov: 92.7%
- Dec: 84.3%
June is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 18.8 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 77.8% from 153 flights
- August 2023: 80.9% from 153 flights
- September 2023: 88.4% from 147 flights
- October 2023: 91.6% from 156 flights
- November 2023: 93.3% from 135 flights
- December 2023: 92.6% from 135 flights
- January 2024: 84.5% from 120 flights
- February 2024: too few flights to score (107)
- March 2024: 88.4% from 122 flights
- April 2024: 91.9% from 123 flights
- May 2024: 79.2% from 149 flights
- June 2024: 72.3% from 149 flights
- July 2024: 73.1% from 151 flights
- August 2024: 87.8% from 148 flights
- September 2024: 93.7% from 142 flights
- October 2024: 93.4% from 153 flights
- November 2024: 97.1% from 140 flights
- December 2024: 88.6% from 123 flights
- January 2025: too few flights to score (119)
- February 2025: too few flights to score (106)
- March 2025: 85.6% from 126 flights
- April 2025: 84.1% from 127 flights
- May 2025: 87.2% from 141 flights
- June 2025: 78.7% from 150 flights
- July 2025: 83.8% from 154 flights
- August 2025: 89.9% from 149 flights
- September 2025: 90.8% from 141 flights
- October 2025: 89.6% from 154 flights
- November 2025: 87.3% from 136 flights
- December 2025: 70.1% from 122 flights
- January 2026: too few flights to score (113)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (101)
- March 2026: 85.9% from 149 flights
- April 2026: 86.8% from 160 flights
- May 2026: 76.3% from 171 flights
- June 2026: 71.2% from 171 flights
- July 2026: 71.8% from 178 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 82.0% against 87.8% in the 12 months before — declining by 5.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 5,174 BNA → MSP 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