The Sunday After Thanksgiving Is the Busiest Empty Leg Day of the Holiday Week

Private aviation runs on repositioning. Every time a jet drops passengers at their destination and needs to fly back, or move on to the next charter, it becomes an empty leg. Thanksgiving week concentrates that repositioning into a few intense days, and the data tells a clear story about when that surge peaks.

Which day has the most empty legs around Thanksgiving?

The Sunday after Thanksgiving (November 30, 2025) was the busiest empty leg day of the entire holiday window, with 1,876 unique legs listed in the SkyAccess marketplace. That is 2.75 times the volume of Thanksgiving Day itself (682 unique legs on November 27), and the highest single-day count of the two-week period we measured. As with Labor Day and other holidays, the return flow home eclipses the outbound travel day in private aviation volume. For methodology, see below.

Day-by-day empty leg volume: Thanksgiving week 2025

Below is the daily count of unique empty legs in the SkyAccess database from November 20 through December 3, 2025. Each leg is a distinct route-time-aircraft combination; duplicates and cancelled flights are excluded.

Date	Day	Unique empty legs
Nov 20	Thursday	1,110
Nov 21	Friday	1,293
Nov 22	Saturday	1,120
Nov 23	Sunday	1,121
Nov 24	Monday	1,160
Nov 25	Tuesday	1,277
Nov 26	Wednesday (pre-Thanksgiving)	1,227
Nov 27	Thursday (Thanksgiving Day)	682
Nov 28	Friday	1,038
Nov 29	Saturday	1,456
Nov 30	Sunday (peak)	1,876
Dec 1	Monday	1,308
Dec 2	Tuesday	1,007
Dec 3	Wednesday	830

The pattern mirrors what SkyAccess recorded for Labor Day 2025, when the Sunday return day also topped the holiday weekend in empty leg volume. Thanksgiving Day itself is the quietest day of the week: operators are parked or positioned for the Thanksgiving-to-Sunday outbound rush, and most charter customers are already at their destination.

The Sunday return-flow corridors

On Sunday November 30, 2025, the busiest departure airports in the SkyAccess data were Teterboro (KTEB, 62 unique legs), Miami-Opa Locka Executive (KOPF, 53), Westchester County/White Plains (KHPN, 46), Van Nuys (KVNY, 33), and Hanscom Field / Boston area (KBED, 30). The pattern reflects aircraft repositioning back toward major metro hubs after delivering passengers to Sun Belt and resort destinations for the holiday.

Top routes on that Sunday included El Paso to Cabo San Lucas, Atlanta (Peachtree) to Boca Raton, Miami-Opa Locka to Nassau, Columbus to Boston area, and White Plains to Nantucket. The corridor from Teterboro, Westchester County, and Fort Lauderdale Executive accounted for a significant share of the return-home legs as travelers came back to the New York metropolitan area. Florida and the Northeast together generate the largest return volumes on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Wednesday pre-Thanksgiving (November 26) told the opposite story: Teterboro (38 legs), Van Nuys (33), and Las Vegas (25) were the top departure hubs, with routes like Las Vegas to Scottsdale, Key West to Miami, and White Plains to Teterboro reflecting short-haul positioning and holiday arrivals in resort markets.

What this means for Thanksgiving 2026

Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, November 26. Based on the 2025 pattern, the highest empty leg volume is expected on Sunday, November 29, 2026 (the return day). Wednesday, November 25 will likely be the busiest pre-holiday departure day. Travelers who want access to discounted empty leg pricing on that Sunday window should search early: empty legs are typically listed as soon as the repositioning route is confirmed, often days or weeks ahead of departure, and can price 25 to 75% below a comparable full charter. SkyAccess carries 5,000+ live empty leg flights from 900+ FAA Part 135 (and international equivalent) certified charter operators.

Methodology

All figures come from the SkyAccess database, unique legs, Thanksgiving week 2025. A “unique leg” is a distinct combination of origin airport, destination airport, departure time, tail number (where available), and aircraft model. Flights marked cancelled, deleted, or internal-only are excluded. The measurement window is November 20 through December 3, 2025 (local departure date). Counts reflect legs listed in the SkyAccess marketplace at any point during that window; they are not a measure of all US private aviation activity.

How to cite this data

Press and research inquiries: press@theskyaccess.com. Please cite “SkyAccess, the world’s largest empty leg marketplace by listing volume.”