Summer's Last Hurrah Promises To Be A Big One This Year With 17.5 Million Expected To Fly Over The Labor Day Holiday Period

Two-thirds to three quarters of nation’s schools will already have been back in session two, three or even four weeks, the college football season will be in its second weekend of competition, and stores across America will by then be completely geeked out with Halloween decorations. But 17.5 million Americans will take their final summer fun trip over the upcoming Labor Day weekend holiday travel period.

Labor Day hasn’t really been the Exclamation Point on the end of summer – the way it was for most of the 20^th century – for at least two decades now. That’s thanks to schools, sports and work schedules that have encroached ever forward into August over the last few decades. Nevertheless, the traditional end-of-summer holiday weekend is showing no signs of fading away, even slightly, as the best time for one final, albeit short, summer vacation getaway.

Indeed,17.5 million Americans are expected to fly over the seven-day period starting tomorrow, Aug. 28, and stretching through Tuesday, Sept. 3. And nearly all of them will be leisure travelers because the holiday created originally to honor the “working man” has proven over time to be a bit of a dead moment when it comes to business travelers making big sales, cutting big deals, and pressing the flesh with existing or potential customers and clients.

That’s 2.51 million people flying on U.S.-based airlines per day, on average, during that stretch. And that’s more – quite a bit more – than the 1.5 million per day who flew on those same carriers during the five-day Independence Day holiday period back at the start of July – smack dab in the middle of summer.

Never let it be said that American travelers don’t know how to take advantage of a long holiday weekend.

Now, out of a total population of 330 million or so people, 2.5 million a day is a relative drop in the bucket. But this year that peak Labor Day holiday demand, which is expected to reach its zenith on Friday the 30^th, is threatening to swamp the U.S. airline industry. Despite repeated public hand wringing by U.S. tourism booster organizations about a drop in foreign travel to this nation, and by some economic and political reporters worrying about the potential for a slowing economy or even recession in the months ahead, travel demand, especially domestically, has been booming all summer.

Delta Airlines achieved an extremely rare high-water market – a 90% load factor for an entire month – in July. United was right behind it at 89% (with a 90% load factor on its domestic fights) in July. American, the largest of the “Big Three,” and Southwest, which actually flies more seat miles in the domestic U.S. market than any other carrier, did not report their July load factors but both were likely to have been in the high 80% range despite respectively having 24 and 34  Boeing 737-MAX 8 planes grounded all summer while U.S. and global aviation safety officials work with Boeing to come up with a solution to a control issue believed to have been a key factor in two deadly MAX 8 crashes in September and March. United also has had 15 MAX 8 planes grounded since last March while the safety review has been underway. 

Those MAX planes’ groundings mean that U.S. carriers have been offering about 300 flights a day less than had been anticipated this summer. In some respects carriers have been able to limit the damage of reduced flights and reduced available seats by bringing older planes out of storage, keeping plane previously scheduled for retirement in operation a bit longer and, in a handful of cases, acquiring easily-adapted older planes to fly in the place of some MAX jets on a temporary basis.

Still, the MAX groundings have left carriers with a significant short-term short-fall in capacity – not relative to their capacity in past years but relative to what they’d originally planned the capacity to be this year. Across the summer airlines have been able to offer about 41 million fewer seats than previously anticipated as a result of the MAX groundings. However, airlines have been able to come up with about 109,000 additional seats a day that will be available for domestic travelers during the upcoming holiday weekend. They’ve done that mainly by changing maintenance schedules so the maximum number of planes can be available for service during the holiday period.

Demand for air travel has been strong all year, in part because of moderated oil prices that have helped to keep fare prices low, in part because of relatively high levels of competition for price-sensitive leisure travelers, and in part because the strong domestic economy has provided Americans with the disposable income needed to travel for fun.

So, it’s not surprising that Labor Day weekend travel demand is expected to be up 4% over last year and poised to set a record for that particular holiday period. It also makes sense given that air fares, on an inflation-adjusted basis, remain low relative to the prices of most other discretionary purchase items and experiences.

John Heimlich, chief economist at Airlines For America, the industry’s trade group, sums it up this way: “With fares at historic lows and customer satisfaction at historic highs, travelers continue to take to the skies in record numbers.”

As usual, most of the Labor Day holiday fliers will be at their destinations on Saturday and Sunday during the holiday weekend. Therefore, flights will have somewhat lighter loads on those days. Friday will be the biggest travel demand day, followed by Monday, Labor Day itself, as vacationers head home. Some also won’t head home until Tuesday, Sept. 3, and some will get a head start by departing tomorrow or Thursday.