Thanksgiving travellers will be low this year

According to the latest information by airline industry forecasters, the total amount of Americans that will be making flights this Thanksgiving will be lower than normal. It is one of the busiest times of the year in the US flying market as people fly from all over the country to be home with their families for this holiday season, but it is predicted that there will be a drop of around four per cent compared to that of last year’s 12-day holiday. This is all despite the fact that airfares are at their lowest since 1998 dropping on average 13 per cent compared to the same time in 2008.

The Air Transport Association of America (ATA), who compiled the data, say with Thanksgiving coming on the Thursday 26th November they expect their busiest days to be on the 20th, 25th, 29th and the 30th, but are not expecting anything like 2008. The CEO of ATA, James May, said that the slow down in travel despite the low cost just shows how bad this year has been for the travel industry and that it is not yet over for airlines and other businesses.

Despite airlines not being as busy as last year, they have taken measures to counter what they believed was going to happen this year, and reduced the capacity on their routes. This helped with how full the flights were and most are close to capacity but this is now the second year running that holiday travel has dropped in the US. Last year it dropped by 10 per cent, the largest fall in seven years.