Holiday travel
Labor Day at OMA
Eppley Airfield, Omaha, NE. July 2023 – July 2026. Set against OMA’s own ordinary days of the same weekday in the weeks around each holiday.
The window, year by year
The window runs the Saturday through the Monday, around Labor Day (the first Monday of September). In the data: Sep 2–4, 2023; Aug 31 – Sep 2, 2024; Aug 30 – Sep 1, 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, Labor Day flights were better in one and about the same in two of the three years. The gap ran from 1.0 point below usual in 2025 to 5.2 points above usual in 2023.
1.75% of scheduled departures were cancelled across the Labor Day windows, against 0.66% on ordinary days of the same weekdays. It was higher in one of the three years.
| Year | Departures | On time | Usual | Gap, points | Cancelled | Usual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023Sep 2–4, 2023 | 164 | 89.5% | 84.3% | +5.2better | 0.61% | 0.66% |
| 2024Aug 31 – Sep 2, 2024 | 171 | 87.0% | 84.3% | +2.7about the same | 1.17% | 0.66% |
| 2025Aug 30 – Sep 1, 2025 | 180 | 83.3% | 84.3% | −1.0about the same | 3.33% | 0.66% |
| All years3 windows | 515 | 86.5% | 84.3% | +2.2about the same | 1.75% | 0.66% |
Day by day
No single day has enough flights in one year to compare the years, so the days are ranked on all three years pooled: Labor Day ran lowest (85.9% on time, 2.4 points above usual) and the Sunday before Labor Day highest (87.3%, 3.5 points above usual). This cannot say whether the same day was worst or best in each year.
- Better than usual
- Worse than usual
- About the same
- What ordinary days of the same weekday had
- Lowest to highest single year
- Lighter bars: days just outside the window
Bars show the on-time arrival rate and start at 70%, not zero.
| Day | Departures against an ordinary day | On time | Usual | Gap, points | Cancelled | Each year: 2023, 2024, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday beforeoutside the window | about the same | 81.4% | 84.0% | −2.6about the same | 0.00% | — · — · — |
| Friday beforeoutside the window | about the same | 81.8% | 82.7% | −0.9about the same | 0.49% | — · — · — |
| Saturday before | 6% fewer | 86.5% | 85.9% | +0.6about the same | 1.99% | — · — · — |
| Sunday before | 21% fewer | 87.3% | 83.8% | +3.5about the same | 1.24% | — · — · — |
| Labor Day | about the same | 85.9% | 83.5% | +2.4about the same | 1.97% | — · — · — |
| Tuesday afteroutside the window | 4% fewer | 86.6% | 88.0% | −1.4about the same | 0.00% | — · — · — |
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 OMA were Sunday, Sep 3, 2023 (52 departures), Monday, Sep 4, 2023 (64 departures), Sunday, Sep 1, 2024 (53 departures), Monday, Sep 2, 2024 (68 departures), Sunday, Aug 31, 2025 (56 departures), and Monday, Sep 1, 2025 (71 departures).
OMA has too few flights in each departure window to compare them.
| Leaving | On time, whole window | Usual | Gap, points | On time, busiest days | Usual | Gap, points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5–9 AM | 96.3% | 91.8% | +4.5better | — | — | — |
| 9 AM–12 PM | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 12–3 PM | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 3–6 PM | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 6–9 PM | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 9 PM–5 AM | — | — | — | — | — | — |
OMA beside every covered airport
Storms and outages move whole regions at once. This puts OMA’s year beside the year of all covered airports together, each against its own usual, to show whether OMA did better or worse than the network.
| Year | OMA on time | OMA, gap from usual | All airports on time | All airports, gap from usual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023Sep 2–4, 2023 | 89.5% | +5.2 | 87.4% | +7.6 |
| 2024Aug 31 – Sep 2, 2024 | 87.0% | +2.7 | 82.1% | +2.4 |
| 2025Aug 30 – Sep 1, 2025 | 83.3% | −1.0 | 82.2% | +2.5 |
For every holiday at once, see the five holidays at OMA, or the network view.