Thanksgiving Air Travel to Shatter Records Yet Again

Will you be flying to your Thanksgiving destination? If so, you definitely will not be alone.

Airlines for America released a new study that revealed 28.5 million passengers are expected to fly during the 12-day Thanksgiving air-travel period between November 17-28, with the busiest day being November 26, with an expected 2.88 million passengers.

The least busy travel day is expected to be Thanksgiving Day.

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The Thanksgiving totals are a three percent increase from the previous record of 27 million set last year. With 2.38 million passengers expected to fly each day during the holiday travel period, an estimated 69,000 more people will take to the skies per day.

To accommodate the extra travelers, airlines in the U.S. have added around 86,000 seats each day, a 3.2 percent increase from 2016.

“Airline passengers continue to benefit from the highly competitive air-service landscape this holiday season, as low fares and increased availability of seats continue to make air travel widely accessible,” Airlines for America chief economist John Heimlich said in a statement.

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In addition to the Thanksgiving travel data, Airlines for America officials also spoke out against a Passenger Facility Charge increase on U.S. passengers being considered by Congress. The trade group found that airports collected an all-time high $28.8 billion in revenues in 2016.

“There is no justification to ask travelers to pay more when airports are sitting on billions of dollars they aren’t using now,” Airlines for America senior vice president Sharon Pinkerton said in a statement. “If airports are determined to further pad their coffers at the expense of travelers, they should own it and collect it themselves rather than burying an unjustified tax hike in the price of an airline ticket.”

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