Cirium: US Domestic Thanksgiving Bookings Slip 1.6%

WASHINGTON — Cirium reported a 1.6% decline in US domestic flight bookings for Thanksgiving in a briefing shared with Airways on October 26. The report did not specify the comparison period for that national figure.

The aviation analytics company's separate fare analysis found that average domestic economy fares rose 30.8% in August 2026 from a year earlier. That comparison covers August fares across the domestic market, rather than ticket prices specifically for Thanksgiving.

The holiday falls on Thursday, November 26. Cirium describes its Thanksgiving figures as actual bookings, but the briefing does not specify the travel dates included, the booking cutoff or the size and coverage of its dataset. The figures therefore offer a booking snapshot rather than a forecast of total holiday passenger traffic.

Airports Show Uneven Booking Trends

In the briefing's year-over-year airport breakdown, Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) recorded a 24.6% booking decline, the steepest percentage fall among the ten airports in Cirium's supplied decreases table. Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) was down 15.3%.

The New York airports moved in different directions. John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) was down 3.2%, while LaGuardia Airport (LGA) was up 2.5%. Without booking totals for each airport, those percentages cannot establish the combined change across the market or whether travelers shifted between airports.

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) recorded a 23.3% increase, the largest percentage gain among the ten airports in the supplied increases table. Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport (FLL) was up 17.1%.

Cirium ranks each list by booking volume, from highest to lowest, rather than by the percentage change. The briefing supplies no absolute booking counts, so a large percentage gain cannot be translated into a passenger total or directly weighed against another airport's decline.

August Fare Rise Is Separate From Holiday Pricing

Cirium's fare chart puts the August domestic economy average at US$225, compared with US$172 in August 2025. The US$53 difference between those rounded chart values calculates to 30.8%, consistent with the briefing's headline figure. These averages exclude taxes and fees and are not adjusted for inflation.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics independently reported a 23.4% annual increase in its airline-fares index for August. The measures cover different markets: the federal index samples non-business domestic and international travel, includes applicable taxes and specified fees, and tracks prices for trips with fixed booking specifications. It does not directly validate Cirium's domestic economy average.

The more recent September federal release showed fares up 22.4% year over year, a trend Airways examined in its coverage of US airline fare inflation.

The supplied figures do not establish whether higher fares caused the reported Thanksgiving booking decline.