Route reliability record
MHT→DCA
Manchester to Washington
- Flights
- 1,108
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 406 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,108 MHT to DCA flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly MHT to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 74.1%, against 70.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 68 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,036 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.96%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
70.8% on time across 1,108 flights
These figures cover 1,108 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MHT to DCA
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 | 1,108 | 70.8% | 96 min | 5.96% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MHT to DCA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Manchester to Washington
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. MHT → BWIManchester to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 87.0% | 87.7% | 0.75% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BOS → IADBoston to Washington | United Airlines | 81.4% | 83.1% | 2.05% | 11am–2pm, Sat (route) | UA 1734 05:30 |
| 3. BOS → BWIBoston to Baltimore | Republic Airways | 79.2% | 81.9% | 3.31% | 5am–8am, Wed | YX 5644 17:25 |
| 4. BOS → BWIBoston to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 76.0% | 77.8% | 2.28% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. BOS → DCABoston to Washington | American Airlines | 74.0% | 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.
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 22 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–8am363 flights84.5%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm392 flights65.5%
- 2pm–5pm70 flights64.6%
- 5pm–8pm283 flights62.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 84.5% for the 5am–8am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 392 flights scheduled in it.
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.
February is the weak month at 62.8% on time, against 79.1% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 117 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.9%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 29,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 10,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 29,031 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 84.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.96%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 68.5% on time across 1,108 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,108 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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.96% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,036 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MHT to DCA questions
How often is MHT to DCA delayed?
Roughly 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 29.2% of the 1,108 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MHT to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
70.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MHT to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.2%, 22 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 February delays on MHT to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 62.8% on time, compared with 79.1% 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
- DCA to MHT — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- MHT to BWI, a related route87.7%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- MHT to CLT, a related route80.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record70.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MHT to DCA and DCA 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.