Route reliability record
DCA→MHT
Washington to Manchester
- Flights
- 1,057
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 406 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 7.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,057 DCA to MHT flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly DCA to MHT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 72.9% of the time and Saturday flights 77.0%, against 65.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 120 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 981 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
65.3% on time across 1,057 flights
These figures cover 1,057 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 1,057 | 65.3% | 70 min | 7.10% | C− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → MHTBaltimore to Manchester | Southwest Airlines | 83.0% | 84.2% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BWI → BOSBaltimore to Boston | Republic Airways | 77.2% | 80.5% | 4.09% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5703 10:54 |
| 3. IAD → BOSWashington to Boston | United Airlines | 75.5% | 77.1% | 2.07% | 8am–11am, Sat (route) | UA 641 08:35 |
| 4. DCA → BOSWashington to Boston | Republic Airways | 73.5% | 76.9% | 4.40% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5710 06:00 |
| 5. BWI → BOSBaltimore to Boston | Southwest Airlines | 69.1% | 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.
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am362 flights72.9%
- 11am–2pm2 flights—
- 2pm–5pm363 flights62.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am330 flights60.1%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.1% on time, against 72.9% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA 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 DCA to MHT, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 72.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.1%, a wide gap of 12.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am72.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm62.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am60.1%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
July is the worst month at 50.6% on time, 28 points below April, the best at 78.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 57.1%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 23,873 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 72.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.10%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 406 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.7% on time across 1,057 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,057 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MHT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.10% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 981 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to MHT questions
How often is DCA to MHT delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.7% of the 1,057 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to MHT compared with the rest of the country?
65.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 12 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to MHT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 72.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.1%, 13 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 July delays on DCA to MHT?
July is the weakest month at 50.6% on time, compared with 78.8% in April. Across the year that is 28 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
- MHT to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- BWI to MHT, a related route84.2%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record65.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to MHT and MHT to DCA 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.