Merry Christmas: 67,000 Flights To Operate On This Festive Day

There are almost 67,000 flights scheduled to operate on Christmas Day, around 47 every minute. Services are at about 87% of what they were on the previous Saturday, December 18th. We take a look at what’s happening, and we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

American remains the world’s largest airline on Christmas Day, with more flights than any other. While its widebodies and narrowbodies have about the same volume of flights as before, the same cannot be said for its Embraer 145 and CRJ-700 regional jets. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying.

Christmas Day: a summary

Longer routes are more likely to operate on Christmas Day than those covering less distance. According to Cirium data, flights between 2,000 and 2,999 miles (3,219km-4,826km) are at 94% of the volume of last Saturday, against 85% of those under 999 miles (1,608km).

Curiously, this is despite the festive day seeing far more domestic flights (90%) than international (78%). Domestic flights are much more commonplace anyway, and most countries with large domestic markets – the US, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia – are very close to normal activity levels. Some, like Japan and Russia, have even exceeded it.

Normality quickly resumes. Source of data: Cirium

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Asia is up, but Europe is down the most

Asia has more flights on Christmas Day than before (+101%). At the other extreme is Europe, with almost four in ten flights removed, mainly because Ryanair – ordinarily the continent’s largest operator – has not one single flight scheduled. British Airways is at 31% and easyJet 40%. With eight in ten flights, Wizz Air bucks the trend.

• Asia: December 25th has 101% of the flights of December 18th
• Central America: 98%
• The Middle East 97%
• Caribbean: 95%
• Africa: 88%
• South America: 87%
• North America: 86%
• Australasia: 75%
• Europe: 64%

While partly because of religion, many European citizens aren’t used to traveling on Christmas, with most businesses shut. Ireland has no departures, with Aer Lingus joining Ryanair in not operating. (Aer Lingus UK will serve the US from Manchester, though.) Meanwhile, the UK is at just 28% of its regular level, Norway 37%, and Italy 39%. Quite a few other countries are at about the half level.

A good chunk of Air France’s long-haul services (those over 3,000 miles/4,828kms) are operating. Indeed, European airlines with sizeable transit traffic have the majority of long-haul service running. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

JetBlue has more flights than usual

Of the US and Canada’s ten largest carriers, only JetBlue has more flights on Christmas Day, up 12% versus December 18th, according to Cirium. It seems that the hybrid carrier has scheduled 292 routes, up from 253.

JFK is JetBlue’s busiest airport, and JFK to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale are the leading routes, with eight outbound flights apiece. One difference versus the previous Saturday is the fully understandable lack of short, business-driven routes, such as Boston to Washington National (which had 15 departures, now four) and Boston-JFK (12, now four).

JetBlue isn’t slowing down on Christmas Day, adding more flights on non-business-heavy routes. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

However, Christmas day comes after chaos on Friday. Airlines globally more were forced to ax over 3,000 flights due to staffing shortages linked to COVID-19 cases, including hundreds in the US alone. Most will be hoping that Christmas day brings fewer disruptions as last-minute fliers try to make it home in time for the festivities.

Are you flying on Christmas Day? If so, share your routing and airline in the comments!

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