Labor Day weekend 2023 flight delays

The holiday started badly: its opening day, Friday 1 September at 77.5% on time, 1.4 points below the 76.1% of ordinary Fridays, was the worst of the window. The best day was Saturday 2 September at 88.0%, while Friday 1 September was the busiest, with 19,988 flights scheduled. 0 of the 4 days ran below the figure for the same weekday in the baseline weeks.

Compared day for day with ordinary weeks: Fri 1 +1.4, Sat 2 +4.5, Sun 3 +9.3, Mon 4 +7.0 points. Not one day ran below its weekday baseline.

Departure time mattered more than the date. Flights leaving 5am–8am ran 92.8% on time, and by 5pm–8pm that had fallen to 78.6%, 14.2 points lower. The 5pm–8pm window moved most against its normal weeks, 5.3 points better than 73.3%.

Most large airports coped better than usual, and only 11 of 39 ran below their normal weeks. Las Vegas (LAS) fell furthest against its own normal weeks, from 77.3% to 65.4%. The weakest were Las Vegas (LAS) at 65.4%, Denver (DEN) at 75.4% and Orlando (MCO) at 77.0%; the strongest Minneapolis (MSP) at 91.8%, Atlanta (ATL) at 91.5% and Washington (IAD) at 90.9%.

13% of the holiday's departures left from just three airports, Atlanta (ATL, 3,595 departures, 91.5% on time), Denver (DEN, 3,274 departures, 75.4% on time) and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW, 2,933 departures, 80.9% on time).

Going the other way, Boston (BOS, +15.3 points), New York (JFK, +12.1 points) and Miami (MIA, +11.9 points) all ran better than their normal weeks.

How long a delay lasted depended heavily on the airport. Delayed departures from Las Vegas (LAS) averaged 92 minutes, against 63 in its normal weeks, the longest of any large airport; at Chicago (MDW) the average was 43 minutes.

The extra holiday flying was concentrated in a handful of places. Daily departures rose most at Miami (MIA, +4%), Honolulu (HNL, +3%) and Orlando (MCO, +2%), and fell most at Charlotte (CLT, −14%). The growth cost punctuality at one of the three.

Holiday windows are too short for most routes to build a sample: the busiest, HNL to OGG (143 flights, 95.8% on time against 92.9% normally), did not reach 500. The ten busiest are listed below as small samples, and 5 of them ran better than their normal weeks.

22.6 points separated the best carrier from the worst: Republic Airways at 95.6%, Frontier Airlines at 73.0%. Alaska Airlines lost the most ground against its own normal weeks, 2.7 points. JetBlue Airways gained the most on its normal weeks, 10.8 points.

An hour late is where most connections are lost. 4.9% of arrivals over Labor Day weekend 2023 were an hour or more late, against 6.5% normally, down 1.6 points. Las Vegas (LAS) had the highest share among large airports at 14.7%.

Cancellations were local rather than general. Overall 0.53% of flights were called off against 1.80% normally, but Las Vegas (LAS) reached 5.43% and San Jose (SJC) 1.24%.

In the run of 3 years (85.0% in 2023, 79.5% in 2024 and 81.0% in 2025), 2023 comes out on top. 2 of those 3 years showed a measurable holiday effect.

Lessons from 2023: Saturday 2 September was the best day to fly; book before the evening, since 5pm–8pm departures ran 14.2 points worse than 5am–8am ones; and allow extra connection time at Las Vegas (LAS) and San Francisco (SFO). 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.