Route reliability record
MHT→BWI
Manchester to Baltimore
- Flights
- 1,721
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 377 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 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 MHT to BWI flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MHT to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.7%, against 88.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 111 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,705 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
88.4% 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MHT to BWI
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,721 | 88.4% | 62 min | 0.76% | A+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Manchester to Baltimore
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.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MHT → BWIManchester to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 87.7% | 88.4% | 0.76% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BOS → IADBoston to Washington | United Airlines | 81.4% | 83.3% | 2.28% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | UA 1734 05:45 |
| 3. BOS → BWIBoston to Baltimore | Republic Airways | 78.3% | 81.8% | 4.28% | 5am–8am, Thu | YX 5644 17:25 |
| 4. BOS → BWIBoston to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.0% | 76.8% | 2.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. BOS → DCABoston to Washington | American Airlines | 72.6% | 75.1% | 3.27% | 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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am429 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am362 flights95.3%
- 11am–2pm426 flights86.8%
- 2pm–5pm345 flights81.8%
- 5pm–8pm159 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.5% of the time, against 72.6% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 429 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MHT to BWI 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 MHT to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.6%, a wide gap of 22.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.5%
- 8–11am95.3%
- 11am–2pm86.8%
- 2–5pm81.8%
- 5–8pm72.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
August is the worst month at 80.0% on time, 16 points below April, the best at 95.9%. 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 92.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 82.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. The split is drawn from 11,997 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.5% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.76%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 84.2% on time across 1,721 flights, 4 points below 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 BWI 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. April runs 95.9% on time and August 80.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,705 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MHT to BWI questions
How often is MHT to BWI delayed?
About one flight in nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.6% 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 MHT to BWI compared with the rest of the country?
88.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MHT to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.6%, 23 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 MHT to BWI?
August is the weakest month at 80.0% on time, compared with 95.9% in April. Across the year that is 16 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
- BWI to MHT — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- MHT to DCA, a related route69.7%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- MHT to CLT, a related route78.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record88.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
Direction matters. MHT to BWI and BWI to MHT 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.