Veterans Day 2024 flight delays

The holiday started badly: its opening day, Sunday 10 November at 88.4% on time, 4.0 points below the 84.4% of ordinary Sundays, was the worst of the window. The best day was Tuesday 12 November at 92.2%, while Monday 11 November was the busiest, with 20,777 flights scheduled. 0 of the 3 days ran below the figure for the same weekday in the baseline weeks.

Each day of the window, set against its weekday in normal weeks: Sun 10 +4.0, Mon 11 +3.2, Tue 12 +1.8 points. Not one day ran below its weekday baseline.

5pm–8pm was the weakest time to depart at 86.1% on time, and 5am–8am the strongest at 94.0%. The 8pm–5am window moved most against its normal weeks, 6.0 points better than 81.9%.

Ranked by on-time rate, Chicago (MDW) at 95.6%, New York (LGA) at 94.1% and Minneapolis (MSP) at 93.5% led the large airports and San Diego (SAN) at 84.8%, Charlotte (CLT) at 86.0% and Seattle (SEA) at 86.4% trailed. Against their own normal weeks, 0 of 32 slipped.

14% of the holiday's departures left from just three airports, Atlanta (ATL, 2,848 departures, 88.4% on time), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW, 2,646 departures, 87.2% on time) and Denver (DEN, 2,583 departures, 89.4% on time).

Going the other way, Dallas (DAL, +12.2 points), Denver (DEN, +11.9 points) and Chicago (MDW, +10.2 points) all ran better than their normal weeks.

When flights did run late, how late depended on where. Delayed departures from St. Louis (STL) averaged 89 minutes, against 60 in its normal weeks, the longest of any large airport; at Dallas (DAL) the average was 35 minutes.

The holiday reshaped where people flew. Daily departures rose most at Phoenix (PHX, +7%), Austin (AUS, +6%) and Charlotte (CLT, +6%), and fell most at Philadelphia (PHL, −3%). None of the three ran worse than usual, so the extra flights were absorbed.

Short holiday windows spread traffic thin across routes: the busiest, LAX to SFO (107 flights, 75.7% on time against 69.9% normally), stayed under 500 flights. The ten busiest appear below with their figures marked as small samples; 5 of them beat their normal weeks.

Only 9.8 points separated the carriers, with Envoy Air first at 93.3% and Frontier Airlines last at 83.5%. Endeavor Air lost the most ground against its own normal weeks, 0.3 points. United Airlines gained the most on its normal weeks, 7.6 points.

An hour late is where most connections are lost. 2.6% of arrivals over Veterans Day 2024 were an hour or more late, against 4.5% normally, down 1.9 points. Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) had the highest share among large airports at 3.9%.

A cancelled flight was rare: 0.08% of the schedule, and 0.55% at the worst large airport.

Of the 3 Veterans Days in the data, 2024 had the highest on-time rate: 89.1% in 2023, 89.8% in 2024 and 78.0% in 2025. 2 of them cleared the measurable-effect test.

Lessons from 2024: Tuesday 12 November was the best day to fly; and 5am–8am departures held up best. 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.