Thousands of flights canceled Sunday after Thanksgiving

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Thousands of flight cancellations have been reported at airports as people head back home from Thanksgiving break.

FlightAware reported over 2,000 cancellations and over 13,000 delays on Sunday alone. Despite chaos at the airports, passengers flying out of Richmond said that RIC was not as busy as they expected.

“It was actually calm I was expecting it to be way worse than this,” said passenger Shaun McKoy.

McKoy was at the airport the Wednesday before Thanksgiving which is also marked as one of the busiest travel days of the year. He said the airport was far busier on Wednesday.

“It was very busy I ended up missing my first flight so I had to change flights and got delayed for about 2 more hours onto the time I was supposed to arrive,” McKoy explained.

According to AAA over 98,000 Virginians were predicted to fly for the Thanksgiving holiday. That number is up 6 percent from 2021.

”It was busy, yeah, Thanksgiving was actually smoother if you can believe it or not but there was still a lot of people yes a lot more than I anticipated,” stated Anton and Theresa who were flying from Richmond International Airport to Tampa Florida to celebrate their babymoon.

AAA said that even if your flight is delayed you should still show up to the airport early in case the plane arrives and is ready for boarding earlier than expected.