Holiday travel

Christmas to New Year’s at MYR

Myrtle Beach International Airport, Myrtle Beach, SC. July 2023 – July 2026. Set against MYR’s own ordinary days of the same weekday in the weeks around each holiday.

History, not a forecast. This shows what happened in past holiday windows. It cannot say what this year will bring, and each holiday appears only a few times in the data, so one bad storm can decide a whole year. Check your airline for your own flight.

The window, year by year

The window runs December 23 through January 2, around Christmas Day (December 25). In the data: Dec 23, 2023 – Jan 2, 2024; Dec 23, 2024 – Jan 2, 2025; Dec 23, 2025 – Jan 2, 2026. Christmas Day fell on a Monday in 2023, Wednesday in 2024, and Thursday in 2025. Three windows are in the data: enough to see whether a day repeats, not enough to call it a rule.

Compared with ordinary days, Christmas to New Year’s flights were better in one, about the same in one, and worse in one of the three years. The gap ran from 5.4 points below usual in 2025 to 5.9 points above usual in 2023.

1.23% of scheduled departures were cancelled across the Christmas to New Year’s windows, against 2.26% on ordinary days of the same weekdays. It was lower in two of the three years.

Christmas to New Year’s, the whole window in each year against ordinary days
YearDeparturesOn timeUsualGap, pointsCancelledUsual
2023Dec 23, 2023 – Jan 2, 202428288.5%82.6%+5.9better0.71%2.23%
2024Dec 23, 2024 – Jan 2, 202531685.6%83.5%+2.1about the same0.63%2.21%
2025Dec 23, 2025 – Jan 2, 202629977.7%83.1%−5.4worse2.34%2.34%
All years3 windows89783.9%83.1%+0.8about the same1.23%2.26%

Day by day

No single day has enough flights to print a rate here, so there is no chart. The table below still lists every day, with dashes where the flights are too few.

Christmas to New Year’s, every day of the window and the days around it
DayDepartures against an ordinary dayOn timeUsualGap, pointsCancelledEach year: 2023, 2024, 2025
Dec 19Tue, Thu, Fri · outside the window—————— · — · —
Dec 20Wed, Fri, Sat · outside the window—————— · — · —
Dec 21Thu, Sat, Sun · outside the window—————— · — · —
Dec 22Fri, Sun, Mon · outside the window—————— · — · —
Dec 23Sat, Mon, Tue—————— · — · —
Dec 24Sun, Tue, Wed—————— · — · —
Christmas Day (Dec 25)Mon, Wed, Thu—————— · — · —
Dec 26Tue, Thu, Fri—————— · — · —
Dec 27Wed, Fri, Sat—————— · — · —
Dec 28Thu, Sat, Sun—————— · — · —
Dec 29Fri, Sun, Mon—————— · — · —
Dec 30Sat, Mon, Tue—————— · — · —
Dec 31Sun, Tue, Wed—————— · — · —
Jan 1Mon, Wed, Thu—————— · — · —
Jan 2Tue, Thu, Fri—————— · — · —
Jan 3Wed, Fri, Sat · outside the window—————— · — · —
Jan 4Thu, Sat, Sun · outside the window—————— · — · —
Jan 5Fri, Sun, Mon · outside the window—————— · — · —

A dash means fewer than 120 flights stood behind the figure, or behind the ordinary days it would be compared with: too few to print a rate, and nothing is estimated in its place. “Usual” is what ordinary days of the same weekday had at the same place in the weeks around the holiday, weighted by the flights being compared.

Which departure times held up

The busiest days at MYR were Saturday, Dec 23, 2023 (30 departures), Saturday, Dec 30, 2023 (30 departures), Thursday, Dec 26, 2024 (32 departures), Saturday, Dec 28, 2024 (32 departures), Tuesday, Dec 23, 2025 (30 departures), and Sunday, Dec 28, 2025 (31 departures).

Across the whole window, flights leaving 5–9 AM had the highest on-time rate: 93.5%. Those leaving 6–9 PM had the lowest: 73.8%.

Christmas to New Year’s, on-time arrival by scheduled departure time
LeavingOn time, whole windowUsualGap, pointsOn time, busiest daysUsualGap, points
5–9 AM93.5%—————
9 AM–12 PM89.7%—————
12–3 PM82.1%—————
3–6 PM——————
6–9 PM73.8%—————
9 PM–5 AM——————

MYR beside every covered airport

Storms and outages move whole regions at once. This puts MYR’s year beside the year of all covered airports together, each against its own usual, to show whether MYR did better or worse than the network.

Christmas to New Year’s at MYR beside all covered airports, by year
YearMYR on timeMYR, gap from usualAll airports on timeAll airports, gap from usual
2023Dec 23, 2023 – Jan 2, 202488.5%+5.981.0%+2.2
2024Dec 23, 2024 – Jan 2, 202585.6%+2.176.2%−3.4
2025Dec 23, 2025 – Jan 2, 202677.7%−5.471.1%−8.5

For every holiday at once, see the five holidays at MYR, or the network view.