This Thanksgiving Is the Priciest to Fly in at Least a Decade

If your Thanksgiving flight looked expensive, the data agrees. Travel booking app Hopper told ABC News that domestic round-trip fares for the holiday are running 39 percent higher than in 2025, and international fares are up as much as 30 percent. That puts Thanksgiving airfare at its highest level in at least ten years. That is despite airlines scheduling about 2.2 percent more flights than for the same period last year, according to Hopper.

The crowds will be large. Industry group Airlines for America expects nearly 29 million people to fly over the Thanksgiving period. Hopper’s data points to Sunday, November 29 as the single busiest day, and it ranks Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth as the busiest airports, each with more than two million seats scheduled between November 21 and December 1. Rail is busy too: Amtrak says it is adding capacity on the Northeast Corridor from November 20 to 30, including extra Washington to New York round trips on the peak travel days.

Individual airlines are bracing too. United told ABC News it expects more than 500,000 customers a day on over 4,800 daily flights between November 19 and December 1, peaking at more than 540,000 on Friday, November 20 and about 600,000 on the Sunday after the holiday. American says it will carry more than 8 million customers on 85,000 flights across the same stretch.

Hopper’s earlier Holiday Travel Index, published in September, already warned that this would be the most expensive holiday season in a decade and blamed high jet fuel costs and airlines trimming less profitable flights. Its advice still applies to anyone who has not booked: flying on Thanksgiving Day itself, Black Friday or Cyber Monday is the most reliable way to avoid the Sunday price spike.

Sources: ABC News, FOX 5 New York