ThanksgivingChristmas weekBest dayAirlinesFindings

Findings: what four Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks of flight data show

Original analysis by Holiday Delay Odds of 4,556,515 flight records (Nov–Dec 2022–2025) from DOT BTS. Free to cite with a link back.

Thanksgiving week had only modestly more late arrivals than the rest of November (19.0% vs 16.5%) and 0.7% of flights were cancelled. What matters most is the day: Thanksgiving Day itself had 9.0% late, while the Sunday after had 31.1%.
31.1%late arrivals, Sunday after Thanksgiving (4 yrs)
9.0%late arrivals, Thanksgiving Day (4 yrs)
27.1%late arrivals, Dec 20–31 (4 yrs)
4.1%cancelled, Dec 20–31 (4 yrs)

Five things the data show

  1. Thanksgiving Day is the quietest day to fly (9.0% late, 0.1% cancelled) and the Sunday after is the roughest (31.1% late), see best day to fly.
  2. Big year-to-year swings: Thanksgiving week late arrivals were 16.6% (2022), 16.9% (2023), 17.2% (2024) and 25.3% (2025). One bad weekend can move a whole year: in 2025 the Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving had 33.1% and 46.9% late arrivals.
  3. Christmas week is riskier than Thanksgiving week in the four-year totals (27.1% vs 19.0% late), but the 2022 winter storm drives that: Dec 20–31 was 36.9% late and 13.2% cancelled in 2022 versus 18.8% late and 0.6% cancelled in 2023.
  4. Most delay minutes are not weather. On late Thanksgiving-week flights, BTS cause categories were 38% late-arriving aircraft, 36% airline-controlled, 20% national aviation system (air traffic, volume) and 5% extreme weather. Weather also hides inside the first and third categories, so this is not “weather doesn’t matter.”
  5. Airport differences: the five airports with the most late arrivals in Thanksgiving week were GRR (28.1%), FLL (27.6%), ORD (26.6%), DTW (24.5%), MKE (23.8%); the five with the fewest were KOA (10.9%), LGB (11.0%), LIH (11.2%), HNL (11.3%), TUS (11.7%).

Largest Thanksgiving-week jump over a normal November

AirportCityFlightsLate (15+ min)Normal periodDifferenceCancelledAvg dep. delay (min)
GRR – Gerald R. Ford International AirportGrand Rapids, MI1,18228.1%15.5%+12.6 pts1.6%16.7
DTW – Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County AirportDetroit, MI7,90824.5%14.3%+10.2 pts0.8%14.5
OMA – Eppley AirfieldOmaha, NE1,52721.9%12.4%+9.5 pts1.3%14.1
MKE – General Mitchell International AirportMilwaukee, WI1,70323.8%14.5%+9.3 pts2.2%16.4
ORD – Chicago O'Hare International AirportChicago, IL17,67626.6%18.5%+8.1 pts4.8%22.1
STL – St. Louis Lambert International AirportSt. Louis, MO4,05722.2%14.3%+7.9 pts0.7%15.8
FLL – Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International AirportFort Lauderdale, FL6,17427.6%19.8%+7.8 pts0.6%19.8
CLE – Cleveland Hopkins International AirportCleveland, OH2,50422.2%14.4%+7.8 pts0.7%16.3
MSP – Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain FieldMinneapolis, MN7,31621.5%14.5%+7.0 pts0.6%13.0
BUF – Buffalo Niagara International AirportBuffalo, NY1,32821.1%14.7%+6.4 pts0.9%14.7

Method and limits on the methodology page. Only airports with at least 1,000 flights in the four Thanksgiving windows are included (80 airports).

Deeper findings (added Oct 21, 2026)

  1. The Sunday-after penalty is not equal everywhere. Among 76 airports with enough flights, late arrivals jump the most from Thanksgiving Day to the Sunday after at ORD (Chicago, IL) (+44 pts), PBI (West Palm Beach/Palm Beach, FL) (+43 pts), DTW (Detroit, MI) (+42 pts), and the least at ELP (El Paso, TX) (+7), SEA (Seattle, WA) (+6), GEG (Spokane, WA) (+4). At 76 of 76 airports the Sunday after was worse than the Wednesday before.
  2. Some airports beat the national rate every single year. 21 airports had fewer late Thanksgiving-week arrivals than the national rate in all four years (2022–2025), led by HNL (Honolulu, HI), SJC (San Jose, CA), BUR (Burbank, CA), RNO (Reno, NV); 4 were worse every year, led by FLL (Fort Lauderdale, FL), MIA (Miami, FL), PHL (Philadelphia, PA), BUF (Buffalo, NY).
  3. Which airline holds up at Thanksgiving? Comparing each carrier's Thanksgiving-week late rate with its own rate on other November days, the smallest holiday jump was Hawaiian Airlines (-6.6 pts), Alaska Airlines (-1.6 pts) and the largest JetBlue (+5.3 pts), Allegiant (+7.0 pts).

Late = arrived 15+ minutes late (BTS definition), computed the same way as the rest of this site. Airports need ≥200 flights on the Sunday after (4 years combined); year-by-year comparisons need ≥300 Thanksgiving-week flights each year.