Route profile
DEN→BNA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Denver to Nashville, 1,014 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 50% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 12,033 flights. How this is calculated
DEN → BNA arrives on time 75.9% of the time; the return trip, BNA → DEN, arrives on time 78.3% of the time, a 2.4-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DEN → BNA spends 25.5 minutes on the ground on a 1,014-mile trip: 17.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DEN and 7.8 minutes from touchdown to gate at BNA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Every day of the week performs about the same on this route, steadier than 95% of 4,467 comparable routes.
78.6% on time on the best day (Wednesday) against 74.4% on the worst (Thursday).
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 4,467 in the comparison.
Why DEN → BNA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DEN → BNA cancelled 91 of 12,033 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 132. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 68.1% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 194 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 91 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.
62 cancellations, 68.1% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
21 cancellations, 23.1% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
8 cancellations, 8.8% 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.
91 coded cancellations were recorded on DEN → BNA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
46 min late
against a median of 2 min early
Percentiles over 12,033 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at BNA after arriving from DEN.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 44% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 23% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.1% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.7% | 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 0.76% of the time and diverts 0.29% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,907 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 46 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 12,033 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DEN → BNA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 91.1% of the time, against 59.4% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 31.7 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 94.6% on time from 725 flights
- 6 AM: 92.3% on time from 578 flights
- 7 AM: 89.3% on time from 706 flights
- 8 AM: 89.5% on time from 1,133 flights
- 9 AM: 81.4% on time from 1,295 flights
- 10 AM: 79.9% on time from 700 flights
- 11 AM: 79.7% on time from 315 flights
- 12 PM: 74.6% on time from 339 flights
- 1 PM: 75.8% on time from 1,342 flights
- 2 PM: 67.5% on time from 465 flights
- 3 PM: 67.3% on time from 664 flights
- 4 PM: 63.4% on time from 480 flights
- 5 PM: 67.6% on time from 1,217 flights
- 6 PM: 62.5% on time from 595 flights
- 7 PM: 57.6% on time from 559 flights
- 8 PM: 57.9% on time from 598 flights
- 9 PM: 61.8% on time from 218 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DEN → BNA 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 DEN → BNA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DEN → BNA, at 49.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 91.1% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 59.4%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of DEN to BNA: 4.0 times the normal rate at DEN and 4.4 times at BNA. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DEN 2.8% against 0.7%, BNA 4.7% against 1.1%. Flights that did leave DEN in bad weather arrived on time 51.5% of the time, against 78.8% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | DEN | BNA |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 2.8% | 4.7% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 0.7% | 1.1% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 51.5% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 78.8% | 79.0% |
| Departures in bad weather | 92,610 | 20,643 |
United Airlines (1.5% cancelled against 3.5% for the other carriers at DEN) and Southwest Airlines (2.4% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at DEN) cancelled fewer departures from DEN 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 DEN
All departures from DEN| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 30,853 | 1.5%below the others | 3.5% |
| Southwest Airlines | 28,467 | 2.4%below the others | 3.1% |
| Frontier Airlines | 6,740 | 3.1%about level | 2.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DEN and BNA, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DEN on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: DEN (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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 7,120 | 73.4% | 0.81% | 0 min | 7.3% |
| United Airlines | 3,895 | 79.9% | 0.54% | -5 min | 6.9% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,017 | 77.9% | 1.18% | -7 min | 8.3% |
Southwest Airlines flew 59.2% of the 12,032 flights listed.
United Airlines arrived on time 6.5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| F91402 Frontier Airlines | 3:00 PM | 663 | 79.9% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 4.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.0%
- Feb: 81.3%
- Mar: 78.1%
- Apr: 77.4%
- May: 71.2%
- Jun: 65.7%
- Jul: 66.2%
- Aug: 76.5%
- Sep: 82.2%
- Oct: 80.0%
- Nov: 81.7%
- Dec: 78.5%
June is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 16.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 64.2% from 353 flights
- August 2023: 74.6% from 357 flights
- September 2023: 79.2% from 338 flights
- October 2023: 77.5% from 370 flights
- November 2023: 84.6% from 356 flights
- December 2023: 76.7% from 365 flights
- January 2024: 72.5% from 306 flights
- February 2024: 74.9% from 275 flights
- March 2024: 80.6% from 348 flights
- April 2024: 81.6% from 343 flights
- May 2024: 73.6% from 367 flights
- June 2024: 73.2% from 354 flights
- July 2024: 73.7% from 364 flights
- August 2024: 81.0% from 339 flights
- September 2024: 89.5% from 335 flights
- October 2024: 85.0% from 355 flights
- November 2024: 80.2% from 332 flights
- December 2024: 86.3% from 313 flights
- January 2025: 77.2% from 280 flights
- February 2025: 82.9% from 261 flights
- March 2025: 78.4% from 322 flights
- April 2025: 70.4% from 319 flights
- May 2025: 69.9% from 323 flights
- June 2025: 60.0% from 347 flights
- July 2025: 59.3% from 370 flights
- August 2025: 74.1% from 330 flights
- September 2025: 77.5% from 315 flights
- October 2025: 77.4% from 323 flights
- November 2025: 79.9% from 288 flights
- December 2025: 71.9% from 279 flights
- January 2026: 85.5% from 256 flights
- February 2026: 86.5% from 252 flights
- March 2026: 75.0% from 307 flights
- April 2026: 80.2% from 284 flights
- May 2026: 69.7% from 314 flights
- June 2026: 63.7% from 340 flights
- July 2026: 67.6% from 353 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.2% against 76.4% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 12,033 DEN → 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