Flight bookings for Thanksgiving and Christmas are up from 2024
Travel for Thanksgiving and Christmas is expected to break records this year, new data shows.
Reservations data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, indicates that the number of reservations made between June 20 and October 8 for travel during the two major holiday periods is higher this year than it was during the same period last year. Bookings for Thanksgiving travel were up more than 2%, while bookings for Christmas travel were up about 1% compared to 2024.
This corresponds to the expectations of major airlines.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in September that 2025 was shaping up to be a busy holiday travel season.
“The whole fourth quarter, the fall holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, they’re all likely to set records with high demand,” Kirby told CBS News last month. “At the beginning of July, it was like a switch turned on and demand was starting to come back.”
Kirby noted that bookings for Thanksgiving and Christmas have “further accelerated” demand for flights, which he sees as a strong indicator that the economy is healthy.
Delta Air Lines also “expects the holidays to be great,” CEO Ed Bastian said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call last week.
Cirium analyzed data from online travel agencies and other sources. The analysis also tracks airlines’ perception of consumer demand.
Airlines have added nearly half a million more seats for the Thanksgiving travel period compared to last year to meet what they expect to be an uptick in demand for flights.
For example, Southwest and American Airlines each added more than 100,000 additional seats for Thanksgiving.
However, the government is currently shut down ahead of the holidays, raising concerns about what kind of problems air passengers could encounter at airports if the lack of funding persists.
While aviation experts told CBS News that air travel stay safe During the shutdown, they noted that understaffing at some U.S. airports could cause more delays than usual for passengers.
When essential personnel, including air traffic controllers, call in sick, for example, the FAA takes steps to slow air traffic to keep the skies safe.
