United Airlines speeds up Thanksgiving calendar: busiest since March

United Airlines on Monday announced plans to step up its schedule during Thanksgiving week, expecting the busiest week since shutting down large swathes of the economy at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March.

The Chicago-based airline said it was adding 1,400 flights to its schedule, an increase of more than 9% during the week of November 23, and that it plans to “swap larger planes if necessary to meet last minute demand “.

Airlines shares surged on Monday after Pfizer and BioNTech reported positive results from their late-stage Covid-19 vaccine trial.

Still, airline schedules and travel are down sharply from last year, with coronavirus cases reaching record levels. So far this quarter, the Transportation Security Administration has screened 32 million people at US airports, up from more than 90 million in the same period last year.

The coronavirus pandemic has shaken the airline industry: Executives are grappling not only with significantly lower incomes, but concentrated demand among price-sensitive vacationers traveling the country. Customers are also waiting longer to book their flights, a sign that they are waiting to see how the virus is affecting travel.

About half of United’s customers will likely book Thanksgiving flights less than a month before departure, the carrier said, up from around 40% of last-minute bookings in 2019.

JetBlue Airways said last week it would add 25 nonstop flights between Nov. 20 and Nov. 30 from the New York area to Florida, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

“As we head into the holidays, we are seeing signs of strong demand in some markets,” said Scott Laurence, head of revenue and planning at JetBlue.