Most weeks of the year, Fridays are the busiest days to fly, and Tuesdays are the least busy. But during the holidays, that trend doesn’t necessarily hold true.
In most years, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is actually the busiest travel day for U.S. airports, according to the Transportation Security Administration, which tracks the numbers of passengers screened daily. Two days before Christmas and one day before Thanksgiving also tend to draw big airport crowds.
The Busiest Days to Fly Around Thanksgiving
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is brutal for airport crowds. For every 100 people who flew on Thanksgiving Day 2021, there were 177 people flying out on the Sunday after, according to TSA.That same Sunday was the year’s single busiest airport travel day in both 2019 and 2021. In 2020, the busiest days were largely concentrated in January and February, before the widespread impact of COVID-19, which would reduce holiday travel later in the year.
- Sunday after Thanksgiving (most crowded).
- Wednesday before.
- Saturday after.
- Friday before.
- Monday after (Cyber Monday).
- Sunday before.
- Tuesday before.
- Monday before.
- Saturday before.
- Tuesday after (Giving Tuesday).
- Friday after (Black Friday).
- Wednesday after.
- Thanksgiving Day (least crowded).
And this year, crowds will likely be bigger than they were over the past couple of years.
The Busiest Days to Fly Around Christmas
Christmas airport crowds can be trickier to predict than Thanksgiving crowds given that the holiday falls on a different weekday each year and that air travel patterns are often dictated by the workweek.But just as the Sunday after Thanksgiving tends to draw huge crowds, the days just after Christmas are wildly popular. And much like how few people travel on Thanksgiving Day itself, relatively few people travel on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day.
- Dec. 27 (most crowded).
- Dec. 23.
- Dec. 20.
- Dec. 26.
- Dec. 30.
- Dec. 19.
- Dec. 29.
- Dec. 22.
- Dec 28.
- Dec 21.
- Dec. 18.
- Jan. 1 (New Year’s Day).
- Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve).
- Dec. 31 (New Year’s Eve).
- Dec. 25 (Christmas Day) (least crowded).
There’s also the weeklong celebration of Kwanzaa, which runs from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1. Thus, travelers during that period might be celebrating more than just Christmas, potentially concentrating more holiday crowds in airports than in other years.