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Shutdown Flight Caps End At US Airports For Thanksgiving

Travelers watch a departures board at Atlanta as shutdown flight caps end at US airports and restored schedules ease Thanksgiving congestion
by
8 min read

Key points

  • FAA ends shutdown flight caps at 40 major US airports from November 17, 2025
  • Flight cuts of up to 6 percent are lifted as cancellations fall below 1 percent and staffing improves
  • Record Thanksgiving demand of more than 31 million passengers now meets largely restored seat capacity
  • Major hubs in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver and San Francisco regain normal scheduling flexibility
  • Residual air traffic control staffing gaps and winter weather can still trigger localized delays and longer taxi times
  • Travelers who pick earlier flights, longer connections and flexible routings will be best positioned if disruptions return

Impact

Where Impacts Are Most Likely
Short haul hubs such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco remain most exposed to any combination of staffing ripples and bad weather
Best Times To Fly
Early morning and late evening departures on off peak days are most likely to benefit from restored capacity and lighter congestion
Connections And Misconnect Risk
Same day connections under two hours at large hubs are still risky, so build in extra time or use secondary airports where possible
What Travelers Should Do Now
Confirm that your airline has reinstated nonstop or preferred routings, lock in seats before fares rise and keep weather and rebooking tools handy
Health And Safety Factors
Crowded terminals and full flights over the holiday period mean masks, hand sanitizer and patience remain useful for many travelers

Shutdown flight caps at 40 major US airports are ending just as the Thanksgiving rush begins, after the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, lifted its emergency order on November 17, 2025, following the record 43 day federal government shutdown. The caps had forced airlines to trim schedules by roughly 4 to 6 percent at key hubs including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and San Francisco, amplifying delays during one of the busiest parts of the year. With more than 31 million passengers now expected to fly between November 21 and December 1, carriers can rebuild lost frequencies and restore some nonstop options, while travelers can again focus on weather, connection times and personal buffer rather than systemic capacity cuts.

In plain terms, the end of shutdown flight caps at US airports means the FAA is no longer limiting the number of flights airlines can operate at 40 major hubs, so Thanksgiving flyers face more normal schedule choices and are less likely to see advance mass cancellations tied to staffing alone.

According to the FAA, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and Administrator Bryan Bedford terminated the flight reduction emergency order effective 6:00 a.m. ET on Monday, November 17, after a safety review showed a steep decline in staffing related incidents in air traffic control, ATC, facilities. The order, first imposed on November 7, had required airlines and some business aviation operators to reduce traffic at the busiest airports as controller shortages deepened during the shutdown. The agency originally contemplated cuts of up to 10 percent, but stopped at 6 percent and then eased the requirement to 3 percent before lifting it entirely as more controllers returned to work and back pay began to flow.

The caps were not limited to one or two gateways. FAA and news reports describe a network level order that covered the 30 so called Core airports, such as Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport, ATL, Chicago O Hare International Airport, ORD, Los Angeles International Airport, LAX, John F Kennedy International Airport, JFK, and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, DFW, plus an additional group of high volume fields including San Francisco International Airport, SFO, Denver International Airport, DEN, Seattle Tacoma International Airport, SEA, and Orlando International Airport, MCO. During the height of the emergency order, some weekends saw more than 2,900 cancellations nationwide as caps, staffing gaps and weather collided, a spike that has now receded.

The headline improvement is clear in the data that helped convince regulators to stand down. Over the weekend before the order ended, fewer than 1 percent of US flights were canceled, well below the mandatory reduction levels at the 40 affected airports and far better than the shutdown peak. Aviation analytics firm Cirium and trackers like FlightAware report that cancellations fell from thousands per day in early November to a few hundred or fewer as staffing triggers dropped and the shutdown ended on November 12. That trend, combined with more stable controller rosters, gave the FAA enough comfort to remove the caps ahead of Thanksgiving.

For travelers, the most immediate effect is the return of more seats and routings on both trunk and feeder routes. Airlines for America, A4A, now projects that US carriers will transport more than 31 million passengers over the Thanksgiving travel period from November 21 through December 1, a new record that implies roughly 2.8 million flyers per day. To meet that demand, A4A says airlines have scheduled about 45,000 additional seats per day compared with 2024, a capacity build that would have been difficult or impossible under a hard flight cap. With caps gone, carriers can now restore some previously cut peak day frequencies and reposition aircraft more flexibly if storms or other bottlenecks appear.

The timing is especially important because the shutdown period overlapped with rolling weather threats. Our earlier outlook on the Thanksgiving storm affecting the eastern United States highlighted how even normal seasonal systems can snarl hubs like Dallas Fort Worth, Atlanta, Chicago O Hare and Boston Logan International Airport, BOS. With the flight caps in place, each wave of storms risked turning into cascading cancellation days as airlines had less headroom to recover. Now, carriers will still have to manage storms and winter operations, but they can lean on full schedules, spare aircraft and more flexible slot use instead of pre cutting flights to satisfy a federal quota.

That does not mean the National Airspace System, NAS, is suddenly robust. The FAA remains thousands of controllers short of its own staffing targets, and the shutdown added another layer of strain by pushing 13,000 controllers and tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration staff to work weeks without pay. Reporting during the shutdown described rising retirements, higher sick leave, and morale problems in key ATC facilities, especially in New York and Florida, and the agency has repeatedly acknowledged that it will take years of hiring and training to rebuild the workforce.

In parallel, the FAA is trying to accelerate a long planned modernization of its core data systems, moving from the current split between En Route Automation Modernization, ERAM, and the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, STARS, to a single Common Automation Platform. Officials argue that a unified platform should make it easier to manage traffic during disruptions and reduce the risk that software or communications failures compound staffing issues, although that modernization push is still in the procurement phase and will not change this year s holiday experience.

For individual flyers, the end of shutdown flight caps changes how to think about routing and risk over Thanksgiving, but it does not eliminate the need for margin. Travelers connecting through the most heavily used hubs, including Atlanta, Dallas Fort Worth, Chicago O Hare, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York area airports, should still treat tight same day connections with caution. A connection window of at least two to three hours on a single ticket remains a reasonable target when flying through these airports during peak days such as Wednesday, November 26, and Sunday, November 30.

Where possible, choosing early morning departures remains one of the simplest ways to exploit the newly restored capacity. Historical data and current airline statements both suggest that the first wave of flights tends to depart more reliably, while later banks bear the brunt of knock on delays from weather, congestion or late arriving aircraft. Now that caps no longer artificially compress schedules, those early flights also offer more fallback options, since airlines can schedule normal mid morning and afternoon sections as backstops rather than fighting cap constraints.

Nonstop flights regain some of their appeal as well. During the cap period, some airlines pushed passengers onto connections or eliminated marginal point to point routes to stay under the mandated reduction. With the emergency order rescinded, carriers are bringing back nonstops on certain city pairs where demand supports them, which can remove one layer of risk from a complex itinerary. However, travelers should still pay attention to equipment changes and rebooked routings in their airline apps, because individual flights may still be swapped or retimed as airlines fine tune post shutdown schedules.

This shift also changes how the earlier shutdown related narrative fits alongside weather focused planning. Our ongoing daily FAA based delay and capacity report covers short term constraint signals, while our recent piece on the US air traffic control overhaul explains the longer term technology and funding arc behind the system. With caps removed, travelers are no longer dealing with a structural, policy driven capacity squeeze layered on top of storms. Instead, they are back to a familiar mix of high demand, weather and infrastructure limits, even if the ATC staffing baseline remains thin by historical standards.

How To Plan Thanksgiving Trips Now

For holiday bookings that are still flexible, the best strategy is to combine the restored flight options with conservative timing. If you can, fly out on less crowded days such as the Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving rather than the Wednesday peak, and return on Friday or Saturday instead of the final Sunday surge. Use newly reopened nonstops to bypass the most volatile hubs, or route through airports that are important but not at the very top of the traffic charts. When that is not possible, protect yourself with longer connection times, carry on only where feasible, and keep your airline, hotel and ground transport apps logged in and ready so you can rebook quickly if storms or local staffing spikes flare up.

Finally, remember that even with improved conditions on paper, the human system behind the Thanksgiving rush has just endured a prolonged shutdown and weeks of uncertainty. Controllers, TSA officers, airline staff and ground workers are all ramping back up under significant pressure. A bit of extra planning, buffer time and flexibility on the traveler side can turn the removal of shutdown flight caps from a technical footnote into a tangible reduction in stress on the day you fly.

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