Anyway to tell where does my flight originate?
 

Am flying from BNA to CUN on DL 539. That is a seasonal flight flying from what I can tell round trip on Saturday 12/27 and on Saturday 1/3. Where does the flight actually originate before coming to BNA? Does it overnight in Nashville on Friday?

I am trying to assess risk of delay in case of bad weather. BNA usually ok but if flight is coming from elsewhere (and all flights out of BNA do), that locations weather could create issues.

Generally, how can you tell where a flight originates?

For both 12/27 and 1/3, the aircraft flies ATL-BNA-CUN-BNA.

How do you know that?

I went to delta.com and can see that Delta 1520 is a MD-88 flying ATL-BNA and connecting to Delta 539, also a MD-88, that then goes BNA -CUN. Ground time is just 81 minutes and DL 1520 is on-time less than 60% of the time.

Without checking all possible connecting cities, how did you find it? Also, are you sure it is a direct (with a stop and number change) flight and that DL 539 is not a connecting flight (different airplane)?

Also, does DL 1520 start in ATL? If so, why is it late almost half of the time?

in the days of print only, the Delta schedule listed each flight number's itinerary in the back section.

There's probably some way to find that online these days, but I'm not up enough on Delta info to know.

This is very simple to figure out that DL1520 ATL-BNA is the same aircraft used on DL539 BNA-CUN. Delta flies to all its' hubs from BNA except SLC (CVG,SLC,JFK,ATL). Mainline aircraft are only used from ATL. By using process of elimination, we can see that on Saturday, 12/27 that the only aircraft flown in for DL539 is DL1520 and it does not return to ATL, thus being used on the BNA-CUN flight.

That aircraft probably sits in ATL overnight, but there is always a chance it comes in from a 0600 departure from some other southeastern city. There are a number of reasons why the on-time percentage is poor. That could be a new flight number on this route, thus giving it little time to prove that it is on-time more often than not. The MD-88 does encounter small tech delays more often than some of DL's newer a/c, or the inbound crews could be late often. These are just a few reasons of many why that percentage could be low. However, one thing to keep in mind is that this is a Saturday flight. Saturday schedules in the domestic system are drastically reduced generally, so if an a/c swap was required in ATL, that could be done quickly. Also, flow delays are much less likely obviously.

Thanks everyone.

also on time percemts for BNA are a little strange, since there is no lee way. The flights are so short it is either on time or late, unlike a west coast flight where some time can be made up. At least from atl.