Airlines see busiest Christmas season on record

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Airlines on both sides of the Atlantic are gearing up for their busiest Christmas season yet as tens of millions of passengers take to the skies.

UK carriers will fly 6.1 million seats between December 20 and January 2, up 5 percent from the previous record in 2019, according to aviation data company Cirium.

The most popular international destinations for UK departures are Amsterdam, Dublin, Geneva, Paris and Tenerife.

A record 54 million passengers are forecast to fly across the Atlantic on US carriers between Dec. 19 and Jan. 6, according to trade group Airlines of America (A4A).

US airlines are offering 140,000 more seats each day than during the holiday period of 2023. Orlando, Las Vegas, Cancun, Fort Lauderdale and Honolulu are among the popular destinations.

The record Christmas is the closing chapter of a busy year for UK and US airlines and reflects sustained strong demand for travel since the end of the pandemic.

Airline executives believe consumers are prioritizing vacations and travel over other discretionary spending, even after several years of high inflation.

However, ticket prices in many leading markets fell in 2024 and some airlines, including Ryanair, Europe’s largest, said: decline in profits during the summer.

In the UK, passengers are also increasingly choosing to travel on Christmas Day itself.

More than 800 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports on Christmas Day this year, the fifth most since 2019 and 47 per cent more than a decade ago.

Low cost carrier easyJet and London’s Heathrow Airport are among the major companies predicting their busiest winter holiday season yet.

Sophie Deckers, easyJet’s chief commercial officer, said the carrier would carry 4.1 million customers on its European network over the Christmas and New Year peak, with the busiest day expected to be December 27.

Paris, Geneva and Tenerife are some of easyJet’s most popular destinations.

“The winter holidays are an important time of year for millions of people to travel,” he said.

Heathrow Airport bosses will be hoping no more flights are disrupted after more than 100 were canceled at the weekend due to strong winds.

“Our focus remains on ensuring smooth, joyful journeys, whether it’s helping passengers reunite with loved ones at Christmas or making sure cargo reaches its destination on time,” said Heathrow chief executive Thomas Waldby.

In the US, United Airlines expects passenger numbers to increase 12 percent over last year to 9.9 million, with the busiest days being Friday, December 27 and Saturday, December 28.

The strong finish to the year comes as global airlines prepare for a record year in 2025.

The number of passengers is expected to reach 5.2 billion in 2025, an increase of almost 7 percent compared to 2024 and the first time that the number of passengers has passed the 5 billion mark, the global lobby group. International Air Transport Association said:

The figure represents slower growth than the 10.7 percent achieved this year, with Iata chief executive Willie Walsh saying the figures represent “a return to more normal levels of growth in the wake of an extraordinary pandemic recovery”.