Thanksgiving Travel Was Smooth … Until Sunday

Air travel was running smoothly this Thanksgiving, according to FlightsStats, with at least 80 percent of all flights arriving on time between Tuesday and Friday. In fact, on Thursday and Friday, on-time arrivals cracked 90 percent! Saturday, too, was near 80 percent.

And then Sunday arrived, and with it came foul weather stretching from the Midwest to the Northeast. This sent on-time performance below 50 percent and resulted in over 29 percent of all flights arriving more than 44 minutes late. It was the worst Thanksgiving weekend Sunday in years, far below the previous two, and ended the weekend with a thud.

If nothing else, these numbers show just how well the national air travel system can run in good conditions, and how completely everything falls apart when the weather turns sour. Throw some rain and thick clouds at the Northeast or Chicago (or worse—at both!) and nationwide delays skyrocket, stranding passengers all over the place and causing bedlam in the airports. According to FlightStats, the airport with the worst delays Sunday was [[Atlanta Hartsfield Airport – ATL | Atlanta]], and for the entire holiday period [[New York LaGuardia Airport – LGA | LaGuardia]], [[Newark Liberty Airport – EWR | Newark]], and [[Boston Logan Airport – BOS | Boston]] saw the most delays.

What was your Thanksgiving travel experience? Were you stuck in an airport all day Sunday, or did you fly on one of the smoother days? Leave a comment below and share your story.