Route reliability record
MHT→DCA
Manchester to Washington
- 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: 6.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,057 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 Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 73.4%, against 69.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 987 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
69.7% on time across 1,057 flights
These figures cover 1,057 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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 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 | 1,057 | 69.7% | 108 min | 6.43% | 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.
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 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 | 87.7% | 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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm360 flights59.8%
- 2pm–5pm48 flights70.5%
- 5pm–8pm284 flights62.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 59.8% on time against 84.9% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MHT to DCA 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 DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.9% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 59.8%, a wide gap of 25.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm59.8%
- 2–5pm70.5%
- 5–8pm62.8%
- 8pm–5am—
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 19 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 60.0% on time, 19 points below April, the best at 79.1%. 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 73.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 8 points.
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 32,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 32,279 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 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.43%, 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
11.9% 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.3% on time across 1,057 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.
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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.43% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 987 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 30.3% of the 1,057 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MHT to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
69.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 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 84.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 59.8%, 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 DCA?
July is the weakest month at 60.0% on time, compared with 79.1% in April. Across the year that is 19 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 route88.4%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- MHT to CLT, a related route78.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record69.7%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.