Name: Fewer people are booking holiday travel after government shutdown
Uploaded: 2025-11-15T19:14:06.166Z
Duration: 2 min 55 s
Description: The Sunday after Thanksgiving is typically the busiest travel day of the year, but the government shutdown has left some flyers feeling uneasy this year.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is typically the busiest travel day of the year, but the government shutdown has left some flyers feeling uneasy this year.

Los Angeles International Airport

Recent data from aviation analytics company Syriam indicates that while flight bookings were up 2.2% at the end of October compared to the previous year, the pace of ticket purchases has slowed since the start of November. Multiple airlines report that there has not been a significant increase in Thanksgiving cancellations, but demand for trips has decreased in recent weeks.

Aviation experts note that although disruptions have improved following the government shutdown, the air traffic control system remains sensitive and vulnerable to further issues, such as staffing shortages or severe weather. Polling suggests that about 40% of travelers who planned Thanksgiving trips have canceled, rescheduled, or abandoned their plans, and nearly half of respondents have growing concerns about air travel safety.

Fewer people are booking holiday travel after government shutdown

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is generally the busiest travel day of the year, but the government shutdown has left some flyers feeling uneasy this year. According to new data from the aviation analytics company, Syriam at the end of October, flight bookings were up 2.2% compared to the same time last year, but the pace of people buying tickets has slowly dropped since the start of November. The data supports statements from multiple airlines that say they have not seen a meaningful amount of Thanksgiving cancellations, but the demand for trips in recent weeks has slowed. Sean Cuddy. He joins us now. He's a senior aviation reporter for travel website. The points guy. Thanks for being here again. So as we look ahead to Thanksgiving, can we expect airlines to be back to their full schedules by then? Following this record long shutdown? I think so. If you look at what we've seen the last few days, it's been a pretty dramatic improvement. If you think back to last weekend, there were the cuts that the FAA had put in place. They were requiring airlines to cancel flights at a bunch of airports nationwide, but we've seen way more delays and cancellations even than that. We saw these disruptions cascading over the entire day. Mass staffing problems at control towers. All of those problems have really improved in the last few days. The FAA is still requiring airlines to cancel some flights, but that's really all the disruptions we're seeing at this point and things are looking very different than they did just, you know, a few days ago, which is great news, but there's always some fine print, right? Because look, this current air traffic controller system is still pretty sensitive. It is, if you think back all year, we've really been talking about, you know the shortage of air traffic controllers. Think back to Newark this spring when we had all those problems. The way I look at it is that really any you know problem that pops up that kind of strains our aviation system right now we're going to. There's kind of a downstream effect with air traffic controllers and as far as travelers are concerned, that really leads to flight delays. So you know over Thanksgiving, you know things I think should be a lot better than we were expecting even just a few days ago. You know, if we were to get a big weather system to move through the East Coast that could definitely disrupt things and and lead to some some cascading disruptions for travelers. Let's talk about how people are feeling. You polled your readers about how air travel disruptions have affected their holiday plans. What were the biggest takeaways? Yeah, I think we definitely have seen some sentiment from travelers deteriorate here in the last couple weeks as we've seen, you know, these there's these large scale disruptions about 40% of travelers that were planning Thanksgiving trips have either been canceled rescheduled or, you know, just decided to kind of throw in the towel on that trip. So you know, that's kind of a notable finding there. We're also finding, you know, almost half of the people that that we pulled in conjunction with you gov. Some rising fears about air travel about safety and you know, I think that goes in kind of conjunction with some of the problems we've seen all year, which go back to, you know, in the wake of the the tragic crash in Washington DC back in January. It's just been kind of an uneasy year for travelers. OK, Sean gotta he. Thank you.

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