Connecting at Nashville: the satellite gates and the bus across the apron

Last checked 24 September 2026

Is a 45-minute layover enough in Nashville?

We estimate about 11% of 45-minute connections at Nashville (BNA) ended in a missed connection between September 2025 and August 2026. How we count a missed connection

Allow 86 minutes for a connection at Nashville (BNA).

Based on U.S. Customs and Border Protection's hourly figures, passport control at Nashville (BNA) averaged 25 minutes (U.S. citizens 21 minutes, non-U.S. citizens 36; September 2025 to August 2026). That figure leaves out collecting and re-checking bags and the security re-screen, which at large US hubs we estimate add about 30 to 45 minutes.

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Nashville is compact. Most gates are within walking distance of each other in one building, behind a single security checkpoint. The exception is the Satellite Concourse, gates C4 to C11. It's a separate building out on the airfield, and the only way there is by bus. If either of your flights uses one of those gates, the bus is the part of your connection to plan for.

At a glance

• Concourses B, C and D and the T-Gates: walk between them behind security.
• Gates C4–C11 (Satellite Concourse): take the shuttle bus. Buses run every 3 minutes, but allow 15 minutes or more at busy times.
• The bus crosses the apron and gives way to aircraft moving around it, so its timing varies.
• Southwest uses two satellite gates, C8 and C9. Even a Southwest-to-Southwest connection can include the bus. GateCast doesn't yet allow for that, so add the bus time yourself.
• Concourse A is closed for rebuilding until July 2028.

Who flies from where

• Satellite Concourse (C4–C11): Allegiant, Avelo, JetBlue, Porter, Sun Country, Contour and Aer Lingus, plus Southwest at gates C8 and C9.
• T-Gates: Air Canada, Alaska, British Airways, Frontier, Icelandair, United, WestJet, Southwest and Aer Lingus.
• Concourse B: Delta and United.
• Concourse C: American and Southwest.
• Concourse D: Southwest.

Gate assignments at Nashville have moved around during the rebuild, so check your boarding pass and the departure screens.

The satellite bus

The Satellite Concourse opened in October 2023 to cope with growing demand. Electric shuttles run from a shuttle station in the main terminal. The airport says they run continuously, every three minutes, carrying up to 69 passengers each.

From the flight deck: The bus drives across the apron, where aircraft have right of way. When aircraft are pushing back or taxiing, it waits. At busy times, allow 15 minutes or more from the main concourse to a satellite gate.

The bus runs airside, so you don't go through security again. A satellite connection means the walk to the shuttle station, the wait, the drive across the apron and the walk to your gate.

How GateCast grades Nashville connections

GateCast works out whether the bus is involved from the airline. When one flight is on an airline based at the Satellite Concourse and the other isn't, the bus is in the time budget, so a 45-minute connection out to a satellite gate is graded differently from the same 45 minutes within Concourse C. Southwest's satellite gates aren't modelled yet: Southwest is filed under the main concourses, so a Southwest connection through C8 or C9 is scored as a walk. The grade also doesn't know the time of day, so at busy times allow more than it suggests.

Tips

• Check your gate numbers. C4 to C11 means the bus.
• Head for the shuttle station as soon as you're off the aircraft. "Every three minutes" doesn't allow for waiting while aircraft move on the apron.
• Arriving early in the morning to check in? The TSA checkpoint opens at 3:30 a.m.

How we count a missed connection

The layover times and missed-connection percentages on this page are estimates from our model, built on US DOT records (September 2025 to August 2026), with no guarantee; never book shorter than your airline's minimum connection time.

A missed connection means the real delays and cancellations that day left less time than our estimate of how long the change takes; estimated from US DOT on-time records for September 2025 to August 2026, with no passenger data.

The 45-minute figure is the estimated share of connections at Nashville (BNA) that ended in a missed connection. The time in the box is the shortest layover after which another 15 minutes lowers the estimated missed-connection rate by less than 1 percentage point, on a curve fitted so that it never rises. The 1 percentage point is a judgement constant that we set. Extra time helps less and less because cancellations and long delays cause missed connections at any gap. Each time is our model's point estimate of where the fitted missed-connection curve levels off, from past flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The curve is calculated at 5-minute steps and joined by straight lines. Giving the time to the minute does not make it more certain: when we re-ran the estimate on 200 resampled sets of days, 95% of the times at Nashville (BNA) fell between 75 and 91 minutes. At Nashville (BNA), the estimated missed-connection rate was 5.4% at 86 minutes (share of connections, September 2025 to August 2026). We don't give a figure for 30 minutes. A 30-minute connection is about as long as our own estimate of the change (typically 26 to 31 minutes at one terminal) and often shorter, so a percentage would mostly come from that estimate.

The passport-control figure is our average of U.S. Customs and Border Protection's hourly averages at Nashville (BNA), weighted by passengers, for flights arriving between September 2025 and August 2026 (CBP Airport Wait Times, awt.cbp.gov, downloaded 22 October 2026). CBP says its wait times "do not include time to retrieve baggage or navigate through the airport." The 30 to 45 minutes for bags and the security re-screen is our rough estimate for large US hubs, based on airlines' stated savings of up to 25 minutes for bag transfer and up to 45 minutes for skipping the re-screen in their international-connection trials, and on traveller reports; actual times vary widely and we have no figure for Nashville (BNA) alone.

Checked 24 September 2026; layover figures checked 23 October 2026; passport-control figures checked 22 October 2026. Nashville's gates are changing during the rebuild, so confirm with your airline before you travel.

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