Easter weekend 2024 flight delays

Monday 1 April at 79.5% on time closed the window as its worst day, 4.4 points below the 83.9% of ordinary Mondays. The best day was Saturday 30 March at 83.8%, while Friday 29 March was the busiest, with 20,134 flights scheduled. 3 of the 4 days ran below the figure for the same weekday in the baseline weeks.

Compared day for day with ordinary weeks: Fri 29 +5.2, Sat 30 −1.0, Sun 31 −0.6, Mon 1 −4.4 points. The longest bad stretch ran 3 days, from Saturday 30 March to Monday 1 April.

Delays built through the day and peaked late: 75.0% on time for 8pm–5am departures against 90.9% for 5am–8am. The 2pm–5pm window moved most against its normal weeks, 5.6 points better than 74.6%.

Ranked by on-time rate, Houston (HOU) at 91.8%, New York (LGA) at 91.6% and Nashville (BNA) at 88.8% led the large airports and San Francisco (SFO) at 71.4%, San Diego (SAN) at 73.1% and Fort Lauderdale (FLL) at 73.6% trailed. San Diego (SAN) fell furthest against its own normal weeks, from 80.5% to 73.1%. Against their own normal weeks, 8 of 43 slipped.

Three hubs set the tone for the whole network: Atlanta (ATL, 3,702 departures, 86.1% on time), Denver (DEN, 3,306 departures, 80.6% on time) and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW, 3,281 departures, 76.7% on time). Between them they handled 13% of departures.

Going the other way, New York (LGA, +11.6 points), Baltimore (BWI, +11.3 points) and Houston (HOU, +11.2 points) all ran better than their normal weeks.

When flights did run late, how late depended on where. Delayed departures from Austin (AUS) averaged 98 minutes, against 63 in its normal weeks, the longest of any large airport; at Honolulu (HNL) the average was 42 minutes.

The extra holiday flying was concentrated in a handful of places. Daily departures rose most at Fort Myers (RSW, +17%), Tampa (TPA, +9%) and Fort Lauderdale (FLL, +9%), and fell most at New York (LGA, −9%). None of the three ran worse than usual, so the extra flights were absorbed.

Short holiday windows spread traffic thin across routes: the busiest, OGG to HNL (129 flights, 93.8% on time against 87.8% normally), stayed under 500 flights. The ten busiest appear below with their figures marked as small samples; 6 of them beat their normal weeks.

20.4 points separated the best carrier from the worst: Endeavor Air at 93.2%, Frontier Airlines at 72.8%. Alaska Airlines lost the most ground against its own normal weeks, 4.2 points. PSA Airlines gained the most on its normal weeks, 10.1 points.

An hour late is where most connections are lost. 5.4% of arrivals over Easter weekend 2024 were an hour or more late, against 7.4% normally, down 2.0 points. San Francisco (SFO) had the highest share among large airports at 10.0%.

Cancellations were local rather than general. Overall 0.27% of flights were called off against 0.83% normally, but Honolulu (HNL) reached 1.16% and San Diego (SAN) 0.89%.

2024 sits in the middle of the 4 years in the data: 83.2% in 2023, 82.4% in 2024, 81.4% in 2025 and 78.2% in 2026. A measurable effect turned up in 3 of the 4.

Lessons from 2024: avoid the final day of the window, the worst of 2024; book before the evening, since 8pm–5am departures ran 15.9 points worse than 5am–8am ones; and allow extra connection time at San Diego (SAN). Those are one year's patterns; check them against the other years before relying on them.

On time means arriving less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time. Average delay counts delayed flights only; cancellations are a share of every scheduled flight. A holiday is compared with the two weeks either side of it, leaving out days that belong to other holidays. The measurable-effect test asks for 3 points of on-time rate, 5 minutes of average delay or 2 points of cancellations; airports, routes and carriers need 500 flights in the window to be ranked. The US DOT publishes on-time data about two months after the month it covers.