Internal flights during Thanksgiving. Madness?

milltown

I have a work trip coming up and I'm taking the option to bring the family over for a few days at the end of it. Business is being done in Oregon and the plan was for the family to meet me in Portland (requirement per company policy), we'd stay a night there before flying to LA for a couple of days.
Thing is, the day we had planned to fly Portland to LA is Thanksgiving Thursday. I had initially thought that most people travelling in the US for Thanksgiving would try to be at their destination by Thursday. Other people are telling me that it is the busiest day of the year for travelling in the US.
Is that true? And if so, how does that manifest itself?
Is the infrastructure strained beyond capacity, or do the systems continue to work?

Any opinions would be most welcome.

cactusgal

milltown wrote: »

I have a work trip coming up and I'm taking the option to bring the family over for a few days at the end of it. Business is being done in Oregon and the plan was for the family to meet me in Portland (requirement per company policy), we'd stay a night there before flying to LA for a couple of days.
Thing is, the day we had planned to fly Portland to LA is Thanksgiving Thursday. I had initially thought that most people travelling in the US for Thanksgiving would try to be at their destination by Thursday. Other people are telling me that it is the busiest day of the year for travelling in the US.
Is that true? And if so, how does that manifest itself?
Is the infrastructure strained beyond capacity, or do the systems continue to work?

Any opinions would be most welcome.

I'm American and have never ever travelled on Thanksgiving Day. The airports will be madly busy the day or two before and the weekend after, but I wouldn't imagine they'd be as busy on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone will be at home eating turkey!

dennyk

Thanksgiving Day itself is usually fairly light as far as air travel goes; fewer people are flying on the holiday itself. The Sunday and Monday after and the Wednesday before will be utterly mad, though; if your family are arriving on Wednesday, you should plan for delays on arrival at the airport, and if you're flying home that Sunday or Monday, make sure to arrive very early for your flight, as the airports will be jam-packed and queues will be long.

milltown

Thanks!

Fair point on their Wednesday arrival, although hopefully with immigration pre-clearance in Dublin their time in the airport on arrival in Portland should be minimised.

I think we'll fly home on the following Tuesday, so no real concerns there.

coylemj

milltown wrote: »

Fair point on their Wednesday arrival, although hopefully with immigration pre-clearance in Dublin their time in the airport on arrival in Portland should be minimised.

The benefit of doing pre-clearance in Dublin or Shannon will arise at the connecting airport in the US. I assume there are still no direct flights between Dublin and Portland so regardless of pre-clearance, they will have no customs or immigration formalities in Portland.

What airport are they flying to from Ireland?

cactusgal

milltown wrote: »

I have a work trip coming up and I'm taking the option to bring the family over for a few days at the end of it. Business is being done in Oregon and the plan was for the family to meet me in Portland (requirement per company policy), we'd stay a night there before flying to LA for a couple of days.
Thing is, the day we had planned to fly Portland to LA is Thanksgiving Thursday. I had initially thought that most people travelling in the US for Thanksgiving would try to be at their destination by Thursday. Other people are telling me that it is the busiest day of the year for travelling in the US.
Is that true? And if so, how does that manifest itself?
Is the infrastructure strained beyond capacity, or do the systems continue to work?

Any opinions would be most welcome.

I was just re reading your post. I think the people who were telling you that TG is the busiest time to travel are mixing up the holiday with the holiday period - eg, Christmas is a super busy time to be traveling. Christmas Day, however, is not. Same deal with Thanksgiving.

milltown

coylemj wrote: »

The benefit of doing pre-clearance in Dublin or Shannon will arise at the connecting airport in the US. I assume there are still no direct flights between Dublin and Portland so regardless of pre-clearance, they will have no customs or immigration formalities in Portland.

What airport are they flying to from Ireland?

Chicago looking most likely so far.

ProudDUB

milltown wrote: »

Chicago looking most likely so far.

Then they will not have anything to do with Customs and Immigration in either Portland or Chicago. It will be taken care of in Dublin. Chicago - Portland will be a domestic flight and will be subject to the same holiday related travel delays as all the other flights. O'Hare can be a bit of a zoo to travel between, even at the best of times and Chicago can suffer from very bad snow storms that can quickly affect flights. Just be prepared to queue for additional periods of time...to check in, to drop off bags, to get through security, to drop off car rentals, to pick up car rentals, over loaded shuttle buses, traffic jams to and from airports, packed hotels, frazzled check in staff, that kind of thing. I agree with the other posters, the worst of it should be over on Thanksgiving Day itself, but it'll only be a 24 hour repreive. Something like 40 million Americans are on the move that weekend and, that is A LOT of people to get from A to B.

ursa actos

They won't have to go through Immigration in Chicago but they'll likely need to change terminals from their international arrival to their domestic departure. There's a shuttle train that operates between the terminals. Unfortunately, this means having to go through security again at the other terminal. I'd recommend allowing plenty of layover time between the flights, especially around Thanksgiving.

endofrainbow

I would be looking at connecting in somewhere other than ord during winter months.

HDMI

Flew through Chicago Thanksgiving 2013 with Aer Lingus and it was crazy.

It was my first ever flight through ORD and with snow and flight cancellations it was mental. Lucky to even find some floor space to sit on, seats with electric outlets are prime real estate so make sure to bring a power pack to give your phone a boost. Nothing worse than trying to contact family members to let them know your flight is delayed and your phone battery on it's last legs.

Have to say the staff were excellent and very pleasant, my connecting flight was with Jet Blue and they kept us constantly up to date.

Planning to do it again this year but going to go out much earlier to avoid the chaos.

coylemj

HDMI wrote: »

Flew through Chicago Thanksgiving 2013 with Aer Lingus and it was crazy.

Which day of that week did you fly through ORD?

A lot of the discussion here centres around whether some days are worse than others during that week.

HDMI

coylemj wrote: »

Which day of that week did you fly through ORD?

A lot of the discussion here centres around whether some days are worse than others during that week.

Went to check back through my emails and it was 2014 not 2013. It was Tuesday 25 November, two days before Thanksgiving.

We landed at 3.30pm but our connecting flight to Raleigh NC was delayed because they were juggling the planes a little. We should have been in RDU early evening but we didn't arrive until after midnight.

coylemj

HDMI wrote: »

Went to check back through my emails and it was 2014 not 2013. It was Tuesday 25 November, two days before Thanksgiving.

Ok, I expect that Tuesday and (especially) Wednesday of Thanksgiving week would be mental. I have flown into JFK on the Thursday (the day itself) of Thanksgiving and I never had a problem. Admittedly I was not making a connection but I never had a problem collecting my bag, getting out of the terminal and into a taxi.

The message being that virtually all of the domestic Thanksgiving air traffic seems to happen before Thursday.

cactusgal

coylemj wrote: »

Ok, I expect that Tuesday and (especially) Wednesday of Thanksgiving week would be mental. I have flown into JFK on the Thursday (the day itself) of Thanksgiving and I never had a problem. Admittedly I was not making a connection but I never had a problem collecting my bag, getting out of the terminal and into a taxi.

The message being that virtually all of the domestic Thanksgiving air traffic seems to happen before Thursday.

Exactly. Everyone knows the days before are mental. OP was asking about Thanksgiving Day itself.