Thanksgiving traffic load factors
 

The Air Transport Association (ATA) is projecting that a record 18 million Americans will fly during this year's Thanksgiving travel period. Their day-by-day forecast:

Traffic and Load Factor Estimates PASSENGERS LOAD FACTOR* (000) (%)

Fri 20 1,770 75.7
Sat 21 1,750 74.7
Sun 22 1,600 68.7
Mon 23 1,560 66.7
Tues 24 1,690 72.4
Wed 25 1,510 64.6
Thur 26 1,090 47.0
Fri 27 1,410 61.1
Sat 28 1,910 81.5
Sun 29 2,090 88.8
Mon 30 1,920 81.5
Tues 1 1,620 69.3

conclusions for "non-thanksgiving-europeans" fly on Tanksgiving-Thursday and enjoy all possible upgrade-priviliges.

(I won't this time, but it worked out very well for years in my planning)

Rudi,

That is why I am going to Europe for Thanksgiving!

Actually, the thing about Thanksgiving Day is that the load factor shown is the *average* for the day. Thanksgiving morning is actually quite busy while the afternoon on is dead.

However, for us frequent fliers, getting upgrades is still typically easier because there are so many more leisure travellers than typical.

Have not flown on Thanksgiving but on Christmas Day and new years day I often find myself with one or two other people in first,
easy upgrades. A few times if the flight's
nearly empty they let people spread out
(but generally keep those who didn't ask for upgrades out of first.) CATMAN

Unfortunately I am flying on Sunday, yes the 88% load day, on CO (on which I have no status). The things we do for family!

I am flying on Wed, and returning on Sunday, 88% travel load day. Which is fine, because on such high travel days, there is more bumping and free tickets, so I am hoping it will be me!

Best flying days are Friday/Saturday -- all those great fares (including the now infamous DL's holiday "L")...

Our load factor is 100% -- we have t-day at our house every year -- expecting 20 people or so people... Makes an airport gate look tame...

I was told last week that I have to fly out on a business trip on Monday the 30th. I checked with the airline (Delta) and found out, sure enough, that virtually everything is sold out. Oh ****, I have to fly (and pay) First Class. Actually, the cost is only a few hundred above what I have been paying for a round-trip purchased about 4 days out from departure. They will never give me any more notice, or let me purchase my ticket ahead of time. Any one ever heard of FF discounts on First Class? That is apparantly what I am getting.

The flights went smoothly from San Diego to Columbus,Ohio, however, getting out of the Columbus,Ohio airport was an incredible nightmare. It took an hour and a half to get out. We sat in the car without moving. We attempted to go back in the airport to have something to drink or eat but nothing was open. What we found out was that they were continuing to charge people for parking which was thus causing the delay, since there were only 2 ticket takers. This seems to be poor planning. It was even more frustrating to have to pay for the hour and a half that we sat waiting to get out of the parking lot. The problem would have been avoided with more booths open, or solved, if they had waved people through regardless of the parking fees.

Ricechek: As frustrating as the airport parking lots are... so too are the commuter railroad stations like Penn Station and Grande Central Terminal in NYC. Every holiday 3 million people rush for the train when the boarding call is made (it's like the boarding procedure at Southwest!) I always end up waiting for the next train, which is practically empty.

But the airports parking lots should do what
some of the railroads do on holidays: wave the fee. Sometimes on the NYC commuter railroads (NOT THE SUBWAYS and BUSES) there will be so many people that the ticket takers give up and let us ride free.

Generally it's on the ride at night. I guess
on turkey day the ticket takers got a chance for Turkey and are somewhere on the train sleeping it off. CATMAN

I'm hoping the percentages hold true....I'm taking my wife for a long weekend to Monterey via SFO - flying Christmas Day (Friday).

I thought that it would be a slow day for the airlines, but the flights seem pretty packed.

I'll let everyone know...

Flew Thanksgiving morning from SFO to EWR -- ok, no problems, but best part was going to the lounge (CO) at 9am and having completely to myself for about an hour. Woman at desk looked quite bored, but the place was extremely quiet and relaxing. If only it happened more often..

NJDavid--Be sure and go on down to Carmel and have a blast. The last time we were there we stayed at the Highlands Inn and it was fantastic. Fireplace in the room and all.

Thanks. Way OMNI and off the topic, but it is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Pacific Grove is where I will retire, someday.....

It seems in the past few years of writing
"HOliday Travel" related stories I've seen the numbers grow... but people are spreading
out when they go (some a few days before, some afterwards.) I hope Christmas Day is
less crowded for you NJ David. (It could be,
a lot of people like me will be making Holiday gift deliveries.)

NJ DAVID: The Pacific Coast area is beautiful country. Friends drove me through there a few years ago. If you are renting a car, avoid Alamo (you wouldn't want to spend part of that special time on a car rental line!) Please report on it and HAPPY & SAFE TRAVELS!!!

Hopefully you have found a way to earn FF miles. I try anywhere and anyway I can!

Jaws43... the Cat Cop will pardon your OMNI
entry. It's travel related and it could give other travelers some good vacation ideas. CATMAN

Catman---I have noticed in a couple of your post, that you keep referring to the boarding procedure of Southwest.
Have you ever flown Southwest?

My experience has been that their boarding procedure is more orderly than American or Delta. You are given a colored plastic boarding card, and board in groups of 30. Boarding cards 1-30 may be red, 31-60 green, and so forth. Unless the gate agent is colored blind, it is hard to board out of order.

I agree their boarding areas and planes are crowded. Like all airlines, they try to fill every seat.

Dansil -- we fly WN (affectionately known in this household as SouthWorst) lots! We can't stand our "hometown" airline -- AmericaWorst!

The key to flying WN is to get there early -- the gate agents usually appear 1 hour prior to flight time. Get an early card (1-30) and be there when the plane arrives to queue up in the cattlecar line...

The problem is that there are ALWAYS people with boarding cards numbered 91-120 standing right smack square in the middle of the aisle, immediately behind the red velvet rope. Inevitably, these idiots have six house sized carry-ons. No amount of kind words (and sometimes not-so-kind words) can get them to get with the program and get the begeebees out of the way.

Orderly, yes -- if you're in the first boarding group. After that, a free-for-all for overhead space, seats, etc...

onefreeman---I have never witnessed a passenger on Southwest or any other airline allowed to board with six carry-on items!
Southwest has the Bin-Hog units to measure the size of all carry-ons, which they strickly enforce.
As far as passengers blocking the jet-way, do we not see this with all airlines? How about overhead space, is the problem limited to Southwest?

Dansil... maybe I should not judge Southwest
until I've flown it. But I've seen the boarding process get out of control on S-W
flights in Vegas, SFO, San Diego (where people were screaming that they were kept
behind the "red Velvet rope." I should make it a New Year's Resolution to fly SW then give a report. It's just the Horror stories
of some make me concerned.

There is no perfect boarding procedure and I
have in several posts made suggestions how to ease this. It seems some people can't wait (Its a New Yorker attitude... I too hate waiting in lines... but I will wait patiently
if I have to.)

The fortunate thing about having elite membership on airlines is that I can board early get my ONE carry-On in the overhead or in the seat in front of me and sit down before the cattle stampede. CATMAN

Catman, What OMNI? I was just letting your fellow Jerzee person, NJDavid, about our experiences, which is very legal.

Now, as we pursue another topic on this "Thanksgiving Load Factor" thread about WN,
I will again put in my opinion. Being a Texas resident, I once flew WN almost exclusively. Presently, I do not knowingly go to a WN terminal, thatS how far away I want to stay from WN and their CATTLECAR. One must arrive at the gate 1-1 1/2 hours to get an 1-30 boarding pass, from then on it's 61-90, back of the plane, 91 and higher, middle seats and no place to put a carry-on.
I'm sorry, dansil, but I simply do not have the time to arrive at the gate that far ahead of time to secure a reasonably good chance of not being trampled. Now, I know there are people out there that "swear-by" WN and will not fly anything else, in fact one of my best friends is one of those people. However, I prefer to "swear-at" WN for their "stoneage method" of treating their
paying passengers.

Jaws43: Agree with you. I've seen one airport where WN boarded in an orderly fashion, the rest (in my personal experience) were not real fun. You didn't mention that before the first 30 passengers board, there are going to be anywhere from 15-30 passengers who pre-board and WN makes no effort to control their numbers.

Well, Thanksgiving travel worked out well for me. I volunteered to get bumped on my way out of Columbus, OH and received a $300 travel voucher and confirmed travel only 2 hours later. I then attempted to get bumped on the next flight, and although that was not successful, I did end up flying first class which is always a good thing! Basically, I ended up back in San Diego only 90 mins after the original flight was scheduled. (Us non-elite have to devise other ways to get the deals!) Way to go United!

Wed. evening TPA-STL on TW--coach 80% full, first 33% full, I had upgraded. Extremely pleasant flight.
Fri AM STL-ORD on UA--able to stand by for the earlier flight (had booked later flight) and upgrade. First class 7/8 full (mostly employees--heard some talking about having to dead-head a lot this holiday), coach 2/3 full.

Congratulations RiceChek and Jamiel for getting your upgrades. If we have to travel on the holidays then we should get something special. (I have no idea what the UA worker
meant by Dead-head... maybe they're scheduled to work one of the SHuttle flights or plan to watch a tape of the late and great Jerry
Garcia and that DEAD!)

Jaws43... I'm very sorry I labeled you with an OMNI. For the record folks: Travel talk is
NOT OMNI... whether it's talking about flight
experiences like RiceChek and Jamiel did here
or my good buddy Jaws giving tips about Carmel.

For that Jaws when Matt Wald's done with his
CO-Cat-COp reign, You'll get your three day
reign! ENJOY but watch out for Roberto!
CATMAN

Kan I bi a Kat-Koop to, pliz. Mista Catman-Sir, yu are mi heiro...

i wants to be policio gato

mebbe we kan do it tugetha, arturo - hombre gato ees going on vaccination next munth. Then evrywon kan be executed primers!

i lacks yur idee, roberto. i wants to be gold medalyon passone executed primer milyun mileer. what diseese hombre gato have?

It amazes me to comprehend why a multi-billion dollar business can't devise and orderly boarding procedure?

First problem: The gate agents...everyone is often gathered around the counter and either people surround the table and all attempts fail at having an orderly line; OR one agent gets stuck and takes 10 minutes with a passenger, meanwhile, the line next to you is moving along fine (happened today in customs). I know space is more limited than in the ticketing area, but why can't they put up those velvet ropes and have everyone stand in one long snake line. Also, people who wait for standby's should have an area to their own...otherwise, again, they often standby(hence the name) the counter and a person approaching the gate agent doesn't know if these people are in line or just standing by.

Second problem: The rush for the plane. Maybe the airlines could pre-queue the passengers. For each seat on the plane, have little squares on the floor *s* yea! ..have a seating diagram of the plane, role it out, tell everyone to stand on their spot, then march them off in order ... last row window, last row middle, last row isle, and so on! (thinking...there have got to be flaws with this idea?)

Oh, got too Atlanta airport last Tuesday..I nightmare I tell you!! Long wait to get to park, then no parking in daily, then another long wait to leave for a park-and-fly, then long, long lines for checkin - lucky for me I was leaving the country...everyone was flying domestic.

Aruba and Roberta:

Better watch out for the Cat; his reach is long!

well ... here's my tday report. i flew to mco on dl no problem (the saturday before the holiday). on tday my family and i flew on northwest to detroit - they let me upgrade to 1st, but not my family - there was a nw employee in 1st (who used a voucher - i saw it when she was in line) - there was another passenger in 1st who was able to upgrade w/his wife but not his kids. i flew nw back to mco on nw the sat. after tday and was able to upgrade. from mco to slc i flew dl - a family got on with 8 bags (i assume they checked nothing) and delayed the whole boarding process. this was a very stressful trip 4 me - i'm glad it's over!

h-neck-ets, mebe yu spil my nam rit and not mak fun of mi amigo roberto. hombre gato big bluf. him goin on vaccination.

Aubie - I hear you on the parking. Some airports just don't have the parking capacity for holiday crowds and some like RDU don't have any capacity period!

Have you considered off airport parking? Every airport has a few. Most will valet park your car, some will wash, detail, service etc. and often for less than the daily rate of on airport parking.

I turned my neighbor on to it and he couldn't believe the comfort and convenience he was missing out on - even as a last minute flyer - like me.

Jim

Aubie... with the holiday season the airlines
should even more enforce the proper boarding
procedures with occassional travelers with
945 bags trying to get on the plane ahead of
everyone else. The whole boarding process chaos is outrageous.

What some brave agent should do is if too many people who are not in the proper called row area try to sneak on the plane simply
stop the whole boarding process. When enough
people get angry (and the plane takes off late) then everyone will realize the importance of waiting your turn.

Mostly I have a car service take me to the airport but if you go to EWR Aubie, brace yourself for another parking nightmare. the lines are long and people at toll booths few, esp. on the holidays. CATMAN

after a very nice meeting with mileageaddict at the Red Carpet Club in SEA this sunday:

*UA shuttle SEA-SFO was delayed 4 hours (apparently wather/storm in SFO - combined with thanksgiving-traffic) - so we arrived at our SFO hotel at 5AM in the morning (but it was not a major problem for us - we had fun looking and listening at all arguments people "invented" at SEA in trying to get an earlier flight ...).

One thing I didn't understand: UA closed their Red Carpet Club in Seattle as scheduled at 9:30PM, not taking note of their flights being delayed (the last one left SEA at 2AM).

Oh, Rudi...you just hit upon a pet peev of mine and one which I have written to United several times. Not only do they not keep the RCCs open when delayed traffic, but they close them even when they have flights scheduled into the night. These are the times when I want the clubs the most. I know why they do this...cost! But I think that the Clubs should be open as long as they have outgoing flights!

As far as my Thanksgiving travel went, My family and I always fly Alaska Airlines nonstop and earn NW WorldPerks miles. However, I am only Preferred with NW (25% mile bonus) and achieved UA Premier Executive this year (100% bonus) so we went the inconvenient way for more miles. I flew SEA-LAX-PHX and returned PHX-DEN-SEA all on UA. The 737 first leg to LAX was packed to capacity and UA was looking for 5 volunteers to take a later flight. Normally, my wife and I travel with just carry-on luggage and would have taken this opportunity but on this flight, we were with our baby and checked in about 5 tons of luggage. We has bulkhead coach seating so we opted to sit tight. Lunch was a pasta salad that looked nice but had as much flavor as one would expect from a meal in a nursing home.

Layover was a brief 30 minutes; just enough time to walk between terminals. LAX-PHX was a very short 737 UA Shuttle flight that was full except for a few middle seats. Again, bulkhead seating and an on-time arrival.

PHX-DEN yet another UA Shuttle 737 filled to capacity. I always seem to get stuck in the middle during maximum capacity flights as my wife prefers the window for privacy when feeding the baby. This is hard to get accustomed to as I tend to get upgraded when flying alone or at least have a window or aisle with an empty middle when by myself. This time was the worst, I was seated next to a man that chose not to wear deodorant. Thankfully, this flight was under 90 minutes as I was dying. Probably the most uncomfortable flight I have taken this year. The last leg from DEN-SEA was on a DC-10 that was only half full. Even though we had bulkhead, we moved to an empty row of 5 center area seats after takeoff so we could lay the baby down for a nap. After a weekend of turkey leftovers, what do we get for lunch...turkey sandwiches...ugh! Still, 100% better than the hamburger UA served me on their 777 between DEN-ORD last month. Landed in SEA on-time, claimed luggage only to find the strap that holds down the handle on the rolling bag ripped away. Filled out paperwork and UA will cover the cost or issure a travel credit voucher for the repair plus $50.

Final note: My baby is 7 months old and has been on 20 flight segments already! He has only cried on one flight (YYC-SEA) due to a quick descent and ear pressure. We always dress him in an outfit that has planes on it when he flies and people love it. Two people have taken pictures of our little cutie.

MileageAddict,

Regarding your seat companion:

I try to turn up the air nozzle to blow fresh air in my direction, but that might not even work in your case! I know that if, for any reason, you have a "problem" with the person next to you, the flight attendant should move you upon request. Of course if the flight is completely full, that will mean someone else will have to sit by your "problem" passenger...I would think it would be a non-rev, since they have last priority?

Maybe they should have electronic smelly sniffers after the metal detectors? *s* They already sniff for explosives.

arturo not on pheenex-denvr flite, must have ben roberto that smel bad.