Thanksgiving weekend has always been a busy period for airlines and airports in the US, with passengers criss-crossing the country to spend time with family and friends.
The last couple of years have set new records in terms of the number of passengers traveling during this time of the year, and 2024 is no different, with more than 30 million travelers expected to fly.
According to Airlines for America (A4A), more than 31 million people are expected to fly in the United States during the popular Thanksgiving holiday period.
The group highlights that this will be an all-time high for this time of the year, up from 29 million passengers who flew in 2023 and 28 million in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Rebecca Spicer, A4A’s Senior Vice President of Communications, commented,
“We expect this Thanksgiving season to be the busiest on record, and U.S. airlines have been preparing for months to get travelers and cargo safely and efficiently to their destinations. We are especially grateful for the more than 1 million airline employees who work to transport millions of passengers and thousands of tons of cargo around the globe safely every day.”
A4A says that it expects the busiest days during this entire travel period to be Wednesday, November 27 and Sunday, December 1. An upward of three million passengers could fly on those two days each.
The rise in demand is significant, and airlines are doing their best to accommodate as many passengers as possible. A4A says that the country’s carriers are offering an additional 150,000 seats every day compared to the same time period last year.
A report by Reuters breaks down the numbers and discusses what some major US carriers are anticipating this year.
It says that American Airlines expects to fly more than eight million people between November 21 and December 3, which is more than half a million compared to 2023.
Delta Air Lines will fly around 6.5 million passengers around the same time, a Y-o-Y increase of 5%. United Airlines expects to carry around 6.2 million passengers and says that this year, there is a 20% higher demand on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday after Thanksgiving than last year.
As much as Thanksgiving is about meeting family and friends, it’s also about enjoying a nice elaborate meal with loved ones. As such, it’s not uncommon for travelers to carry food items in their luggage around this time.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is prepared every year to see if guidelines are being met regarding food items, and in 2023, it also published some tips for people planning to travel with Thanksgiving-specific food items.
It said that solid items like homemade or store-bought pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, frozen, cooked or uncooked turkey, chicken, ham, steak, and fresh vegetables like potatoes, yams, broccoli, green beans, and Brussels sprouts could be carried in cabin bags.
Sauces, gravy, preserves, jams, and jellies that are usually a lot more than a few ounces should be packed in check-in bags. More information on this can be found on the TSA page here.
