Thanksgiving & Christmas 2026 Flight Delays: The Data-Backed Guide
Matt — Founder. Published September 29, 2026. Updated October 1, 2026. 9 min read.
Figures checked against DelayGuard BTS tables on 2026-10-01. Canonical page: US airport delay rankings.
If you're booking holiday flights this year, two facts matter more than everything else in this article:
- The weekend after Thanksgiving is where the risk is concentrated. Last year the Sunday after Thanksgiving was the busiest day in TSA history, and a winter storm hit that same weekend.
- December runs meaningfully later than November. BTS shows a 71.74% on-time rate for December 2025 versus 77.34% for November.
Everything below is built from last season's actual numbers: TSA screening records, BTS on-time data, published airline and airport rankings, and NOAA's winter outlook. Where a number is our own analysis or our own read, we say so.
What actually happened last year
On Sunday, November 30, 2025, the TSA screened about 3.13 million people, the busiest single day in the agency's history (ABC News). It was the third straight year the Sunday after Thanksgiving set the all-time record (The Points Guy). ABC reported more than 1,000 cancellations and 13,000 delays that day (ABC News), and AirHelp calculated that 47.5% of air travelers were disrupted (Travel + Leisure).
The cause was a stack of problems on the same weekend. A storm dropped 8.4 inches of snow at Chicago O'Hare on Saturday, the snowiest November day on record there (National Weather Service), and more than 1,400 flights were canceled that day, mostly in the upper Midwest (ABC News). On Sunday, JetBlue also canceled about 170 flights to install a mandated Airbus A320-family software update (CBS News).
Airlines for America said roughly 31 million passengers flew during the 2025 Thanksgiving period, a new high (Yahoo News). Over the year-end holidays, TSA screened nearly 45 million travelers from December 19 to January 4 (AirAdvisor).
Will 2026 set another record? Not necessarily. Through September 23, 2026 screenings were running about 0.7% behind the same period of 2025, so a third straight annual record is no longer the base case (AirAdvisor). Even so, the Sunday after Thanksgiving has been the busiest day of Thanksgiving week in each of the last five years (Autopilot). TSA, FAA, AAA and A4A publish their 2026 forecasts in mid-to-late November (Autopilot).
Thanksgiving week: mostly fine, with one bad weekend
Averaged over the full nine-day window (Nov 22–30, 2025), Thanksgiving week looked normal. DelayAtlas's analysis of BTS data puts it at 77.8% on-time against 76.3% for a typical week, with cancellations of 1.74% against 2.09% (DelayAtlas).
But an average hides the shape. We broke the same period down day by day in BTS on-time data (share of flights that operated and arrived within 15 minutes of schedule):
| 2025 day | On-time (flights operated) | Canceled |
|---|
| Mon Nov 24 | 78.2% | 1.1% |
| Tue Nov 25 | 82.1% | 0.2% |
| Wed Nov 26 | 77.9% | 0.3% |
| Thu Nov 27 (Thanksgiving) | 92.5% | 0.2% |
| Fri Nov 28 | 84.4% | 0.3% |
| Sat Nov 29 | 66.9% | 8.4% |
| Sun Nov 30 | 53.1% | 3.9% |
| Mon Dec 1 | 65.4% | 2.3% |
Source: DelayGuard analysis of BTS on-time performance data for reporting carriers. Totals differ slightly from FlightAware counts, which cover a broader set of flights.
The pattern is the point: the outbound days were unremarkable, Thanksgiving Day was excellent, and the return weekend was rough. In 2025 much of that was weather, but a system at maximum density has no slack to absorb a storm, which is why the return days carry the most risk.
December is the bigger structural problem. BTS reports 77.34% on-time for November 2025 and 71.74% for December 2025 (BTS Transtats). AirHelp ranks December 2025 as one of the three most-disrupted months of the year by passenger disruption rate (30.1%), behind July (31.1%) and June (30.2%) (Travel + Leisure).
Thanksgiving 2026: the day-by-day
Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, November 26. Here is how the days rank, using last year's patterns and current Hopper fare data:
| Day | What to expect | Notes |
|---|
| Mon Nov 23 | Cheapest departure day | Around $370 round trip, about $50 less than Wednesday (ABC News) |
| Tue Nov 24 | Heavy | The FAA's busiest 2025 day by scheduled flights, at more than 52,000 (Autopilot) |
| Wed Nov 25 | Heavy | The most expensive and popular departure day (ABC News) |
| Thu Nov 26 | Quietest | Thanksgiving Day 2025 was the quietest travel day of the year (AirAdvisor); average fare around $371 (ABC News) |
| Fri Nov 27 | Busy | Third-busiest flying day in A4A's 2025 ranking (CBS News) |
| Sun Nov 29 | Peak of the period | Busiest day in A4A's 2025 ranking, and up to about $604 average round trip (CBS News, ABC News) |
| Mon Nov 30 | Very heavy | Second-busiest in A4A's 2025 ranking (CBS News) |
| Mon–Tue after (Nov 30–Dec 1) | Cheaper returns | Hopper says returning the Monday or Tuesday after Thanksgiving averages around $350 (ABC News) |
If you can, fly on Thanksgiving Day itself. Both the operations data above and Hopper's fare data point the same way.
Christmas 2026: a Friday Christmas
Christmas 2026 falls on a Friday. We don't have an official 2026 forecast yet, so the best guide is last year's: A4A projected the peak days for the 2025 year-end period as December 19, 20, 21, 26 and 28, and the lightest as Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day (Yahoo News). Our read, which is an inference rather than a forecast: expect the weekend before Christmas and the weekend after to be the heaviest, and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to be the lightest.
Hopper measured a 26% saving, about $100 per ticket, on Christmas Eve departures (VoyageHacks, citing Hopper).
Which airlines delay most on holidays
The Boston Globe's November 2025 roundup of holiday departure-delay rates ranked the airlines below (Boston Globe). The article does not name the analyst or the exact year, and these are departure delays, not arrival delays:
| Airline | Holiday departure delay rate |
|---|
| JetBlue | 25.9% |
| Southwest | 25.9% |
| Allegiant | 23.9% |
| Frontier | 22.6% |
| Spirit | 21.3% |
| United | 16.3% |
| American | 16.2% |
| Delta | 15.8% |
| Hawaiian | 10.4% |
Spirit no longer flies. It ceased operations in May 2026 (our full explainer). A separate analysis of BTS data going back to 2016 found the same pattern: Southwest and JetBlue at 24.2% of Thanksgiving departures delayed, and Hawaiian best at 8.6% (98.1 The Hawk). Saily's analysis of December 2023 and 2024 DOT data found the same airline at the bottom for on-time performance: JetBlue at 69.89%, while Republic Airways (86.79%) and Delta (85.17%) led (USA Today).
If your route has multiple carriers, this is a real decision input: the gap between the most and least delay-prone carriers is about ten percentage points.
Which airports hold up
For December, Saily's study of DOT data (averaging December 2023 and 2024) found Salt Lake City (SLC) the most reliable at 85.91% on-time, followed by Minneapolis–St. Paul (84.08%) and Los Angeles (83.03%). At the other end, Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood (FLL) was at 69.72% and Baltimore/Washington (BWI) at 71.16% (USA Today).
For Thanksgiving specifically, the BTS-based analysis reported by 98.1 The Hawk found Orlando Sanford (29.3%) and Newark Liberty (23.6%) had the highest share of delayed Thanksgiving departures from 2016 to 2024, while Atlanta was the steadiest at 11.9% (98.1 The Hawk). If your itinerary connects, the connecting hub matters as much as your origin. See our airport delay profiles.
For year-round baselines on a single BTS basis, the airport delay rankings show flights departing each airport, January 2023 to December 2025: for example Atlanta at 21.0% and Newark at 23.4% against 21.2% nationally. The holiday figures above come from other analyses with different windows and definitions, so they are not directly comparable to those baselines.
The 2026 wildcard: a very strong El Niño
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center says there is a greater than 90% chance of a very strong El Niño this fall and winter, and a 75% chance of a historic event that would exceed the strength of previous El Niño events dating back to 1950 (NOAA CPC).
For the U.S., NOAA's outlook favors above-average temperatures across much of the country and wetter-than-normal conditions stretching from Southern California across the Southwest, the lower Mississippi Valley, the Southeast and portions of the Mid-Atlantic, with the highest odds along the eastern Gulf Coast and Southeast coast. Across parts of the Southeast, odds of a wetter winter could reach 70% to 80%, particularly in southern Georgia and northern Florida (OregonLive).
Forecasters caution that seasonal outlooks do not predict specific weather events, and individual winter storms can still occur even in areas favored to be warmer (OregonLive). Our read, and it is an inference: a wetter Southeast is a reason to build extra buffer into late-December connections through ATL or MCO.
When to book: the 2026 fare picture
Airfare for Thanksgiving and Christmas is at a 10-year high, according to Hopper. The average domestic round trip is around $402 for Thanksgiving (up 31% from last year) and $452 for Christmas (up 23%). Hopper recommends monitoring prices now and booking before Halloween (ABC News).
Google Flights fare data measured the cheapest Thanksgiving 2026 fares about 35 days before departure (a 24 to 59 day range), and the cheapest Christmas 2026 fares about 51 days out (a 32 to 73 day range) (VoyageHacks). For a Thanksgiving trip departing November 23–25, that range works out to roughly late September through late October. For a Christmas trip departing December 18–23, it works out to roughly October 6 through November 21.
If you are reading this in late September, the Thanksgiving window is open now and closing soon.
The pilot's playbook
I fly for a living, and this is what I'd tell family:
- Book the calendar first, the fare second. Saving $50 by flying Wednesday buys you one of the most crowded departure days of the season.
- Fly morning. Hopper found flights departing after 9 a.m. were twice as likely to be delayed as flights scheduled between 5 and 8 a.m. (ABC News). Our own data is in Morning vs. Evening Flights: Which Has Fewer Delays?.
- Nonstop whenever possible. Every connection multiplies your exposure to the worst days.
- Check your specific flight's risk before you book. DelayGuard gives you a delay risk score for your exact route, airline, date, and departure hour. Free accounts get 3 predictions per day with risk bands; Premium unlocks the exact percentage and full risk factor breakdown. Compare your Tuesday-before flight and the Saturday-morning alternative before you choose.
- Watch cancellation risk too. Holiday storms cancel as well as delay. Our airline cancellation rates page shows the historical rate for your route.
- Consider travel insurance for December trips. The economics depend on your fare and flexibility; we ran the numbers in Is Travel Insurance Worth It for Flight Delays?.
The one-sentence version
Fly before the rush or on Thanksgiving Day itself, avoid Sunday November 29 if you have any choice, build extra buffer into December connections through the Southeast, and book soon, because Hopper's fare data says waiting costs you money.
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