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DelayAtlas

Route reliability record

MHTBWI

Manchester to Baltimore

Flights
1,727
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Distance
377 mi
Carriers
1
A+GRADE

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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,727 MHT to BWI flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Best time to fly MHT to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.6%, against 87.7% for the route overall.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 101 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

Key figures

On time

87.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,713 completed flights

Avg delay

59 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.75%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Southwest

87.7% on time across 1,727 flights

These figures cover 1,727 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on MHT to BWI
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Southwest Airlines1,72787.7%59 min0.75%A+

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.

Most reliable ways to fly from MHT to BWI
OptionAirlineSuccessOn timeCancelledBest departureMost punctual flight
1. MHTBWIManchester to BaltimoreSouthwest Airlines87.0%87.7%0.75%5am–8am, Wed
2. BOSIADBoston to WashingtonUnited Airlines81.4%83.1%2.05%11am–2pm, Sat (route)UA 1734 05:30
3. BOSBWIBoston to BaltimoreRepublic Airways79.2%81.9%3.31%5am–8am, WedYX 5644 17:25
4. BOSBWIBoston to BaltimoreSouthwest Airlines76.0%77.8%2.28%5am–8am, Wed
5. BOSDCABoston to WashingtonAmerican Airlines74.0%76.5%3.23%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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am438 flights95.6%
  • 8am–11am360 flights94.4%
  • 11am–2pm416 flights84.5%
  • 2pm–5pm351 flights82.8%
  • 5pm–8pm162 flights70.6%
  • 8pm–5am

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.6% of the time, against 70.6% for the evening window. That is 25 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 438 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 20 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 month87J87F91M96A88M93J76J84A90S85O92N83D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 76.0% on time, 20 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 90.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 81.2%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week81.2Mon89.6Tue90.6Wed88.9Thu88.6Fri88.5Sat86.9Sun
Monday: 81.2 percent on time. Tuesday: 89.6 percent on time. Wednesday: 90.6 percent on time. Thursday: 88.9 percent on time. Friday: 88.6 percent on time. Saturday: 88.5 percent on time. Sunday: 86.9 percent on time

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

  • Late-arriving aircraft
    43%
  • National Airspace System
    31%
  • Carrier
    25%

43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 12,347 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 95.6% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, below the national 1.81% 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 3.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 83.0% on time across 1,726 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,727 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 July 76.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,713 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 eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.3% of the 1,727 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

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

87.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 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 95.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.6%, 25 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 MHT to BWI?

July is the weakest month at 76.0% on time, compared with 95.9% in April. Across the year that is 20 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. 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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Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.