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DelayAtlas

Route reliability record

BWI→MHT

Baltimore to Manchester

Flights
1,721
Period
September 2025 to August 2026
Distance
377 mi
Carriers
1
BGRADE

This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,721 BWI to MHT flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

Best time to fly BWI to MHT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.1%, against 84.2% for the route overall.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 69 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

Key figures

On time

84.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,694 completed flights

Avg delay

60 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.39%

National rate is 1.89%

Best carrier

Southwest

84.2% on time across 1,721 flights

These figures cover 1,721 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on BWI to MHT

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on BWI to MHT
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Southwest Airlines1,72184.2%60 min1.39%B

Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Best ways to make this trip

The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Manchester

Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.

Most reliable ways to fly from BWI to MHT
OptionAirlineSuccessOn timeCancelledBest departureMost punctual flight
1. BWI → MHTBaltimore to ManchesterSouthwest Airlines83.0%84.2%1.39%5am–8am, Wed—
2. BWI → BOSBaltimore to BostonRepublic Airways77.2%80.5%4.09%5am–8am, SatYX 5703 10:54
3. IAD → BOSWashington to BostonUnited Airlines75.5%77.1%2.07%8am–11am, Sat (route)UA 641 08:35
4. DCA → BOSWashington to BostonRepublic Airways73.5%76.9%4.40%5am–8am, SatYX 5710 06:00
5. BWI → BOSBaltimore to BostonSouthwest Airlines69.1%71.1%2.77%5am–8am, Sat—

Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.

Plan this trip by month, day and time

Departure window

The best time of day to leave

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

  • 5am–8am333 flights96.4%
  • 8am–11am203 flights93.0%
  • 11am–2pm318 flights86.9%
  • 2pm–5pm321 flights81.7%
  • 5pm–8pm174 flights75.4%
  • 8pm–5am372 flights72.0%

Scale runs 65% to 100%.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.4% of the time, against 72.0% for the overnight window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 372 flights scheduled in it.

Explore

Filter BWI to MHT by airline, time, month and day

Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.

On BWI to MHT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.0%, a wide gap of 24.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.

  • 5–8am96.4%
  • 8–11am93.0%
  • 11am–2pm86.9%
  • 2–5pm81.7%
  • 5–8pm75.4%
  • 8pm–5am72.0%

best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 13 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.

On-time rate by calendar month90J87F82M89A82M84J79J77A89S84O89N78D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, August worst

August is the worst month at 76.9% on time, 13 points below January, the best at 89.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. May was the busiest month here, with 153 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.5%, a spread of 13 points.

On-time rate by day of the week83.8Mon88.5Tue89.1Wed85.4Thu82.3Fri83.4Sat76.5Sun
Monday: 83.8 percent on time. Tuesday: 88.5 percent on time. Wednesday: 89.1 percent on time. Thursday: 85.4 percent on time. Friday: 82.3 percent on time. Saturday: 83.4 percent on time. Sunday: 76.5 percent on time

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

  • Late-arriving aircraft
    50%
  • Carrier
    35%
  • National Airspace System
    8%
  • Extreme weather
    6%
  • Security
    1%

50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 16,008 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,678 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

5.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 377 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.4% on time across 1,721 flights, 4 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,721 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.

Work out the risk of missing a connection in MHT after this flight

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 89.8% on time and August 76.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,694 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

BWI to MHT questions

How often is BWI to MHT delayed?

About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.8% of the 1,721 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

How reliable is BWI to MHT compared with the rest of the country?

84.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.

What time of day has the fewest delays on BWI to MHT?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.0%, 24 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are August delays on BWI to MHT?

August is the weakest month at 76.9% on time, compared with 89.8% in January. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Related

Where to go next

Direction matters. BWI to MHT and MHT to BWI are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.