Airlines Facing Critical Test as Thanksgiving Travel Begins

And you thought college was tough?

Welcome to the 11-Day Exam.

A nationwide labor shortage, an unfavorable weather forecast and an expected 20 million fliers are just some of the factors that will test airlines for the better part of two weeks as the Thanksgiving holiday is underway.

The exam period began Friday, November 19 and will last until Monday, November 28. That’s what the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) defines as the Thanksgiving travel period, and it’s already started with a bang.

Some 2,242,956 passengers were processed through U.S. airport security checkpoints on Friday the 19th, the greatest single-day number of fliers in the pandemic era since February 28, 2020, when 2,353,150 took to the air.

By all accounts, Friday and Saturday – when another 2 million-plus flew – were free of delays, cancellations and any onboard incidents.

It’s a good start for the airlines, which desperately need to pass this test and prove to themselves, the industry and the flying public that they can handle the workload.

Frankly, it’s a test the airlines can’t afford to fail.

There have been so many problems this year – a perfect storm of staffing issues, inclement weather, technology and a general inability to react quickly to roadblocks – that the airlines are under scrutiny. Just this calendar year, Southwest twice had periods of mass delays and cancellations. American faced days of rescheduling, as did Spirit.

Whether the airlines learned anything from those failures remains to be seen but will be answered this week.

So far, domestic carriers have tried to address staffing issues by putting holiday programs into place that incentivize current employees to commit to holiday work hours. In some cases, airlines were offering up to a 300 percent bonus to workers who would commit to working between November 15 and January 2. Some airlines have trimmed their schedules and cut routes.

Weather is expected to be an issue as well, as a storm is moving from west to east that could disrupt travel during Thanksgiving Week in some of the nation’s most populous areas and airports, including Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

And, of course, the increase in the number of travelers increases the percentage of potential onboard incidents. Verbal and physical abuse of flight crews has been happening at unprecedented levels this year, with more than 5,200 reports sent to the Federal Aviation Administration of unruly passengers this year alone.

How airlines and airports police this issue in lieu of the wait for a federal mandate to punish offenders remains to be seen.

So, is this Thanksgiving test a final exam for the airlines.

No, but it’s certainly going to count on the final grade. What U.S. carriers do during this 11-day period will portend what happens next month for Hanukah, Christmas and New Year’s travel and, perhaps, even into spring break and summer vacations into 2022.

It’s about showing everybody – current passengers, potential passengers, C-level management, boards of directors and investors – that the situation can be handled.

Robert Collier, arguably the original self-help guru, once said that “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”

Here’s a chance for the airlines to prove it.