Guide
The holidays that fly better than a normal week
In 17 of 39 US holiday-years since late 2022, flights ran more punctually over the holiday than in the weeks around it. Fourth of July week 2024 beat its normal weeks by 9.4 points.
Holiday travel has a reputation, and it is not a good one. Crowded terminals, full flights and stories of stranded passengers make it easy to assume that flying over a holiday means flying late.
The DOT data only partly agrees. This site compares every US travel holiday with the two weeks either side of it, leaving out days that belong to other holidays, so that each holiday is measured against an ordinary stretch of the same season. Across 39 holiday-years with complete data, flights ran more punctually during the holiday than in its surrounding weeks 17 times, and less punctually 22 times.
Holiday-years that beat their normal weeks
| Holiday | On time | Normal weeks | Change | Cancelled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fourth of July week 2024 | 79.5% | 70.1% | +9.4 pts | 0.84% |
| Easter weekend 2023 | 83.2% | 76.1% | +7.1 pts | 0.56% |
| Memorial Day weekend 2023 | 84.6% | 79.2% | +5.4 pts | 0.46% |
| Veterans Day 2024 | 89.8% | 85.4% | +4.4 pts | 0.08% |
| Fourth of July week 2023 | 73.9% | 70.3% | +3.6 pts | 1.62% |
| Labor Day weekend 2023 | 85.0% | 81.5% | +3.5 pts | 0.53% |
| Easter weekend 2024 | 82.4% | 79.0% | +3.4 pts | 0.27% |
| Fourth of July week 2025 | 72.7% | 70.1% | +2.6 pts | 1.65% |
| Veterans Day 2023 | 89.1% | 86.5% | +2.6 pts | 0.11% |
| Easter weekend 2025 | 81.4% | 79.7% | +1.7 pts | 0.47% |
| Presidents Day weekend 2023 | 82.0% | 80.5% | +1.5 pts | 0.44% |
| Thanksgiving week 2025 | 77.8% | 76.3% | +1.5 pts | 1.74% |
| Memorial Day weekend 2025 | 77.9% | 76.6% | +1.3 pts | 0.65% |
| Christmas and New Year 2023 | 81.8% | 80.8% | +1.0 pts | 0.48% |
| Martin Luther King Jr. weekend 2023 | 80.1% | 79.2% | +0.9 pts | 0.45% |
| Spring break 2025 | 80.5% | 79.8% | +0.7 pts | 0.97% |
| Columbus Day weekend 2023 | 84.0% | 83.5% | +0.5 pts | 0.22% |
Each row links to that holiday's page for the year, with the day-by-day record, the airports and airlines, and whether the gap was large enough to count as a measurable holiday effect on this site's test.
The biggest improvement in the data is Fourth of July week 2024, which ran 9.4 points above its normal weeks. Fourth of July week appears most often in the list, beating its normal weeks in 3 of its years.
Why a holiday can run better than usual
Several things change over a holiday besides the number of passengers, and most of them help punctuality:
- Business travel falls away. Many holidays thin out the early-morning and Friday-evening business peaks, which are among the most congested times at the big hubs.
- Airlines plan for it. Holiday schedules are set months ahead, with extra aircraft and crews positioned for the expected demand. An ordinary Tuesday gets no such planning.
- Some holidays shift demand rather than add to it. A long weekend moves trips onto Friday and Monday, but the days in the middle of the holiday can be quieter than a normal weekday.
- Weather is not tied to the calendar. A holiday that happens to miss the storm that hit the week before will look good against its baseline, and the reverse is just as possible.
That last point is the reason to look at several years before drawing a conclusion. A single good holiday may just have been lucky with the weather.
Holiday-years that ran worst against normal
| Holiday | On time | Normal weeks | Change | Cancelled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presidents Day weekend 2025 | 64.1% | 82.4% | -18.3 pts | 3.19% |
| Martin Luther King Jr. weekend 2024 | 59.0% | 76.4% | -17.4 pts | 10.42% |
| Christmas and New Year 2022 | 63.5% | 77.0% | -13.5 pts | 11.25% |
| Columbus Day weekend 2025 | 74.4% | 81.8% | -7.4 pts | 0.56% |
| Christmas and New Year 2025 | 72.4% | 78.9% | -6.5 pts | 1.95% |
| Christmas and New Year 2024 | 74.6% | 81.0% | -6.4 pts | 0.99% |
| Presidents Day weekend 2024 | 78.4% | 84.2% | -5.8 pts | 0.40% |
| Spring break 2026 | 73.1% | 78.9% | -5.8 pts | 4.06% |
| Memorial Day weekend 2026 | 74.2% | 78.8% | -4.6 pts | 0.95% |
| Labor Day weekend 2024 | 79.5% | 83.4% | -3.9 pts | 0.93% |
The largest decline in the data is Presidents Day weekend 2025, 18.3 points below its normal weeks. Large falls like that usually trace to a specific event rather than to holiday traffic: a winter storm across the northern hubs, or a single airline's operational breakdown. The holiday pages show the worst day and the airports that fell furthest, which is where the cause is usually visible.
How to read a holiday's record
Each holiday on this site has an overview page with every year side by side and a separate page for each year. When planning around a holiday, work from the overview rather than a single year:
- Check the direction across years. A holiday that ran below normal in every year is a genuine risk. One that went both ways is mostly a matter of weather.
- Look at the day pattern. The return day at the end of a window is often the weakest, and the overview shows which day of the window has averaged best.
- Look at departure time. Across holidays, the gap between early and late departures is often larger than the holiday effect itself, so the time you fly matters more than whether you fly over the holiday.
- Check your airports. The airport tables show which ones fall behind their own normal weeks over that holiday, and which cope.
The holiday index lists every holiday with its next dates, and the holiday rankings sort every holiday-year from least to most punctual.
The measurable-effect test
Not every gap between a holiday and its normal weeks is meaningful. Ordinary week-to-week variation moves the on-time rate by a point or two without any holiday involved.
So each holiday-year page states whether the holiday passed a test for a measurable effect: at least 3 percentage points of on-time rate, 5 minutes of average delay, or 2 points of cancellations against the surrounding weeks, on a window of at least 50,000 flights. A holiday that ran 1 point better than normal appears in the table above, but its page says plainly that the difference is within normal variation.
What this means for booking
The practical lesson is that avoiding a holiday is not, on its own, a good way to avoid delays. The time of day, the airline and the airports on your trip each move the odds more than the holiday does in most years.
Where the data does support caution is at the end of long holiday windows, when return traffic peaks, and over the winter holidays, when a single storm can undo an otherwise normal week. The busiest travel days guide looks at those peak days directly.
Common questions
Does this mean holidays are a good time to fly? Not necessarily. A holiday can run more punctually than its normal weeks while flights are fuller, fares are higher and rebooking is harder. The figures here are about punctuality only.
Why use the two weeks around the holiday as the comparison? Because they share the holiday's season, weather and schedule. Comparing Christmas with a spring month would mostly measure winter, not the holiday.
Which holidays are most likely to run badly? The winter holidays carry the most risk in most years, because a single storm across the northern hubs can undo a whole window. The ranking of every holiday-year shows which ones fell furthest.