Tomorrow Is Set To Be The Busiest Day In US Aviation Post-Pandemic

Although airports in the US have felt crowded for a while, they have not consistently approached pre-pandemic levels. With almost 42 million Americans scheduled to travel for the long weekend, this Memorial Day vacation weekend will go down in history. The busiest day ever since the outbreak started will be tomorrow, May 26, according to schedule data from analytics company Cirium. There are precisely 22,759 flights planned to leave the US tomorrow.

Data indicates that American Airlines offers the most flights and seats, with 5,231 and 663,479. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, where American’s headquarters are located, is the airline’s busiest airport, with 755 scheduled departures and 108,630 seats.

Tomorrow, Atlanta’s Delta Air Lines will have 4,583 flights with 625,923 seats available, making it the second busiest airport. Delta has over 40,000 fewer seats than American and almost 700 fewer departures. Since it is where company headquarters are located, Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport sees the most traffic with 816 planned departures and 136,118 seats.

United Airlines, the lone member of the “big three” that hasn’t been identified yet, might be expected to be the third busiest airline tomorrow, but Southwest Airlines, situated in Dallas Love Field, rounds out the top three. Even though Southwest is third, it offers just 3,000 fewer seats than American. Tomorrow will see 4,161 departures according to Southwest.

With 3,958 departures tomorrow, United, which is not among the top three in terms of flight volume, is not far behind Southwest. With only 498,889 seats available, United’s seat offering is significantly less than that of the other three airlines mentioned above. United’s busiest airport is Chicago O’Hare International Airport, which has 469 departures and 57,843 available seats.

Breaking it down by airport

The only US airport with more than 1,000 departures tomorrow is ATL, the busiest airport in the world. Given that it serves as a key hub for American and United, ORD’s numbers are comparable to those of ATL. Tomorrow, 1,089 flights are scheduled to leave from ATL versus 968 from ORD.

American accounts for a staggering 82.4% of departures at DFW. Just 34 flights are operated by Spirit Airlines, which has the second-highest number of DFW departures. With 31 and 30 departures, respectively, Delta and United lag behind Frontier.

The fourth busiest airport is Denver International Airport, which serves as a key hub for two airlines, United and Southwest. 20 different airlines have 899 departures planned from the Mile High City. United has 438 departures, compared to 279 for Southwest, making it the busiest airline at the airport.

Rounding out the top five is LAX, a hub for several US carriers, including Delta, United, and American. Tomorrow, 736 flights are scheduled to depart LAX. The ‘big three’ each have 100 or more departures from LAX. Delta has 149, American has 123, and United has 100.