Route profile
DFW→BNA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Dallas–Fort Worth to Nashville, 631 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 3% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,715 flights. How this is calculated
DFW → BNA arrives on time 67.8% of the time; the return trip, BNA → DFW, arrives on time 73.6% of the time, a 5.7-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DFW → BNA spends 27.4 minutes on the ground on a 631-mile trip: 18.3 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DFW and 9.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at BNA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Reliability here swings unusually widely by season, a wider month-to-month spread than 95% of 3,357 comparable routes.
79.8% on time in a typical February, against 54.0% in June.
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 3,357 in the comparison.
Why DFW → BNA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DFW → BNA cancelled 302 of 10,715 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 35. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 86.8% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 41 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 302 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.
262 cancellations, 86.8% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
37 cancellations, 12.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
3 cancellations, 1.0% 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.
302 coded cancellations were recorded on DFW → BNA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
72 min late
against a median of 0 min early
DFW → BNA has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 0 min early, but the worst tenth are 72 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 10,715 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at BNA after arriving from DFW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 50% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 31% | Likely to miss |
| 60 min | 22% | High risk |
| 90 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 7.4% | 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 2.82% 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 10,396 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 72 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,715 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DFW → BNA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 84.2% of the time, against 56.2% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 28.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 81.1% on time from 175 flights
- 7 AM: 84.5% on time from 1,012 flights
- 8 AM: 84.3% on time from 950 flights
- 9 AM: 83.3% on time from 253 flights
- 10 AM: 78.7% on time from 975 flights
- 11 AM: too few flights to score
- 12 PM: 73.9% on time from 622 flights
- 1 PM: 62.9% on time from 774 flights
- 2 PM: 65.9% on time from 735 flights
- 3 PM: 58.7% on time from 535 flights
- 4 PM: 61.3% on time from 967 flights
- 5 PM: 55.2% on time from 409 flights
- 6 PM: 58.5% on time from 779 flights
- 7 PM: 55.6% on time from 650 flights
- 8 PM: 54.3% on time from 721 flights
- 9 PM: 60.8% on time from 939 flights
- 10 PM: 61.7% on time from 168 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DFW → 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 DFW → BNA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DFW → BNA, at 50.4%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 84.2% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 56.2%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 7.0 times the normal rate at DFW against 4.4 times at BNA. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DFW 10.4% against 1.5%, BNA 4.7% against 1.1%. Flights that did leave DFW in bad weather arrived on time 56.4% of the time, against 74.4% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | DFW | BNA |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 10.4% | 4.7% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.5% | 1.1% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 56.4% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 74.4% | 79.0% |
| Departures in bad weather | 72,822 | 20,643 |
Envoy Air (11.9% cancelled against 9.9% for the other carriers at DFW) cancelled more departures from DFW in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly better.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at DFW
All departures from DFW| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 38,491 | 10.0%about level | 10.9% |
| Envoy Air | 15,244 | 11.9%above the others | 9.9% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DFW and BNA, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DFW on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: DFW (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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 9,563 | 67.1% | 2.82% | 1 min | 12.5% |
| Envoy Air | 656 | 79.8% | 1.68% | -4 min | 5.7% |
American Airlines flew 93.6% of the 10,219 flights listed. American Airlines cancelled 2.82% of its flights here against 1.68% for Envoy Air.
Envoy Air arrived on time 12.7 percentage points more often than American 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA1500 American Airlines | 8:59 PM | 863 | 56.3% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 9.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 68.6%
- Feb: 79.8%
- Mar: 66.6%
- Apr: 68.9%
- May: 61.2%
- Jun: 54.0%
- Jul: 55.4%
- Aug: 64.8%
- Sep: 74.6%
- Oct: 76.4%
- Nov: 78.1%
- Dec: 76.8%
June is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 25.8 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 67.3% from 259 flights
- August 2023: 70.0% from 255 flights
- September 2023: 74.9% from 236 flights
- October 2023: 80.6% from 262 flights
- November 2023: 82.1% from 251 flights
- December 2023: 81.0% from 258 flights
- January 2024: 61.4% from 274 flights
- February 2024: 80.5% from 257 flights
- March 2024: 63.6% from 301 flights
- April 2024: 70.2% from 326 flights
- May 2024: 50.9% from 350 flights
- June 2024: 55.1% from 355 flights
- July 2024: 55.9% from 351 flights
- August 2024: 62.9% from 311 flights
- September 2024: 74.6% from 257 flights
- October 2024: 79.7% from 286 flights
- November 2024: 81.9% from 241 flights
- December 2024: 74.4% from 276 flights
- January 2025: 73.7% from 293 flights
- February 2025: 77.6% from 258 flights
- March 2025: 71.1% from 299 flights
- April 2025: 66.2% from 290 flights
- May 2025: 67.1% from 306 flights
- June 2025: 51.5% from 309 flights
- July 2025: 51.0% from 318 flights
- August 2025: 62.5% from 297 flights
- September 2025: 74.3% from 287 flights
- October 2025: 69.8% from 314 flights
- November 2025: 70.6% from 256 flights
- December 2025: 75.1% from 265 flights
- January 2026: 69.9% from 308 flights
- February 2026: 81.2% from 262 flights
- March 2026: 64.8% from 279 flights
- April 2026: 70.0% from 293 flights
- May 2026: 66.2% from 323 flights
- June 2026: 55.2% from 327 flights
- July 2026: 49.7% from 325 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 67.0% against 68.7% in the 12 months before — declining by 1.7 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,715 DFW → 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