Holiday travel always makes the headlines. Whether the stories are good or not, the world hears about the facts during the festive week of December 18 to December 22.
We at Cirium know during the final weeks of December our partners and friends throughout the travel industry work very hard behind the scenes to provide the best experience possible. For all those serving the festive travel rush, the Cirium team appreciates your efforts. We want to acknowledge the massive amount of work you handle and say thank you.
To put that amount of work into context, here is a quick look at how this year’s figures are shaping up.
- From December 16-20, 20M+ passengers will take domestic & international flights departing the U.S.; that’s the TOTAL count of people estimated to cruise in 2019 or HALF the total annual visitors to Disney World
- 113,000 flights will take off to & from the top 10 busiest airports in the U.S. carrying up to 14M passengers
- The country’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL), is just as busy during the festive season with 10% of all estimated air travelers passing through on 16,000+ scheduled flights
Los Angeles International (LAX) will be the second busiest with 12,000+ scheduled flights, carrying 1.8M passengers- Christmas Eve at the 10 busiest airports alone will see 1.7M passengers, depending on more than 56,000 airline and airport staff to handle the 13,000 flights+
- The most frequent domestic route for the holidays is between San Francisco (SFO) & LAX, with 570 scheduled flights, & 75,000 passengers
- Transcontinental services between New York (JFK) & LAX rank second, with 515 scheduled flights connecting 74,000 passengers
- The busiest long haul route is between JFK & London Heathrow (LHR), with 260 services carrying 64,000+ passengers
- Second largest international route, Honolulu and Tokyo (NRT), has 136 scheduled services carrying up to 34,000 passengers
- In total, almost 350,000 travelers will depart on international flights to & from the U.S., on 1,400+ scheduled flights
You can gain additional insights from Cirium with historical aviation data and real-time flight delays, along with Cirium Ideas projects. Or learn more about any number of our analytics tools and online resources.
Sources:
Cirium.com for flights, schedules, fleet calculations and passenger volumes
https://www.tripsavvy.com/myths-about-cruise-ships-and-cruising-993248
https://www.ponderweasel.com/how-many-people-can-fit-on-a-plane/
https://magicguides.com/disney-world-statistics/
