Veterans Day 2023 flight delays

As so often, the trip home was the hardest part. Sunday 12 November at 87.8% on time, the closing day of the window, 6.8 points below the 81.0% of ordinary Sundays. The best day was Saturday 11 November at 91.3%, while Friday 10 November was the busiest, with 19,791 flights scheduled. 0 of the 3 days ran below the figure for the same weekday in the baseline weeks.

Against the same weekday in normal weeks, day by day: Fri 10 +3.3, Sat 11 +5.4, Sun 12 +6.8 points. Not one day ran below its weekday baseline.

Across the day, on-time rates ran from 85.1% for 5pm–8pm departures up to 93.1% for 5am–8am. The 2pm–5pm window moved most against its normal weeks, 3.3 points better than 84.4%.

33 airports scheduled at least 500 departures. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) at 82.6%, Seattle (SEA) at 82.7% and Orlando (MCO) at 83.5% ran the lowest on-time rates, Minneapolis (MSP) at 95.5%, Salt Lake City (SLC) at 92.7% and Detroit (DTW) at 92.2% the highest. Seattle (SEA) fell furthest against its own normal weeks, from 85.5% to 82.7%. In all, 4 of 33 ran below their own figures for the surrounding weeks.

The biggest airports carried the most weight: Atlanta (ATL, 2,783 departures, 92.0% on time), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW, 2,477 departures, 87.9% on time) and Denver (DEN, 2,389 departures, 89.5% on time), together 14% of every departure in the window.

The large airports that did better than usual were Denver (DEN, +8.0 points), Minneapolis (MSP, +7.0 points) and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW, +5.5 points).

Not all delays were equal. Delayed departures from St. Louis (STL) averaged 118 minutes, against 57 in its normal weeks, the longest of any large airport; at Baltimore (BWI) the average was 38 minutes.

The extra holiday flying was concentrated in a handful of places. Daily departures rose most at Miami (MIA, +7%), Orlando (MCO, +5%) and Fort Lauderdale (FLL, +4%), and fell most at New York (LGA, −14%). The growth cost punctuality at one of the three.

The busiest routes were LAX to SFO (97 flights, 92.8% on time against 79.1% normally), SFO to LAX (97 flights, 92.8% on time against 82.6% normally) and HNL to OGG (96 flights, 95.8% on time against 89.7% normally). No route reached 500 flights in 3 days, so the table shows the ten busiest with a small-sample mark and they are not ranked. 8 of those ten ran above their normal on-time rate.

Carrier choice was worth 15.8 points of punctuality over the holiday, from Endeavor Air at 94.3% down to Spirit Airlines at 78.5%. Alaska Airlines lost the most ground against its own normal weeks, 2.8 points. Envoy Air gained the most on its normal weeks, 6.0 points.

Tight connections depend less on the on-time rate than on how many flights ran badly late. 2.8% of arrivals over Veterans Day 2023 were an hour or more late, against 3.6% normally, down 0.8 points. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) had the highest share among large airports at 6.4%.

Almost everything that was scheduled flew: cancellations were 0.11% overall and topped out at 0.50% among large airports.

On-time rate by year: 89.1% in 2023, 89.8% in 2024 and 78.0% in 2025. 2023 is neither the best nor the worst of them. A measurable effect turned up in 2 of the 3.

If 2023 is any guide: avoid the final day of the window, the worst of 2023; and 5am–8am departures held up best. Treat that as one data point; the Veterans Day overview shows which of these patterns repeat.

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.