By the numbers: Houston airports breaking records all year, 1.9M people to fly this holiday week

HOUSTON – Houston’s airports are on pace for a year that will go down in the record books.

This upcoming week, our airports are anticipating nearly 2 million passengers at William P. Hobby and George Bush Intercontinental Airports between June 29 and July 8.

According to stats, this represents an 8% increase from 2023.

“This is going to exceed Memorial Day, which we set the history record for United Airlines here in Houston,” said Peggy Slay, a customer service manager at United Airlines. “We expect to handle about 50,000 people a day.”

The travel surge comes on the heels of an already record-breaking Spring Break and Memorial Day travel season, according to the Houston Airport Systems.

In May, 2,816,854 people boarded nonstop or connecting flights at either Bush or Hobby airport, breaking the last record set in July 2018 with 2,794,798 passengers.

To handle the surge in passengers this summer, particularly around those big holidays, airports and airlines are urging customers to show up three hours before a domestic flight.

“Anticipate being here three hours before your flight time, because you never know what the TSA line is going to be,” Slay said.

At Bush Airport, it’s all hands on deck for United Airlines.

The airline took KPRC2′s Gage Goulding and Photojournalist Oscar Chavez for a behind-the-scenes look at how they’re managing the massive passenger count and flying 490 planes a day from Bush.

Inside of Bush Airport, the United Airlines Operations Center is constantly watching the weather, monitoring flights and making adjustments to ensure the smoothest operation they can, while maximizing the efficiency for their airplanes.

Meanwhile, out on the ramp crews are battling the sweltering summer heat to load and unload luggage from airplanes, bring in fresh water, pump out the bathrooms and keep the airplanes full of fuel.

All of this is done while crews inside prep each plane for the next group of passengers.

Speaking of passengers, United Airlines is making room for even more people to fly on their planes, without adding any flights or routes to their already incredibly packed schedule.

This is called “upgauging.” In simple terms, United is opting to fly bigger planes with more seats this summer to handle the surge in customers.

“We increase the passenger numbers by putting larger aircraft on routes that demand additional seats to get people there, so we can accommodate as many people as we can,” Slay said. “Same number of aircraft, but more seats get a lot more people out of here.”

United Airlines explains why airplane size helps drive up passenger records:

• United Airlines is the largest airline in Houston, currently flying 490 daily flights out of Bush Airport, including 56 international destinations (including Latin America, Canada, Europe and Asia), averaging about 55,000 customers served a day.
• As part of the United Next growth plan, an enterprise-wide investment in fleet, network, airports and customer experience, over the next decade United intends to introduce more than 800 narrow and wide-body aircraft to its fleet and expand its global network to reach new points on the map. With that growth plan underway, United is utilizing larger gauge aircrafts for domestic and international routes. United is phasing out its 50 seat aircrafts and utilizing 75 seat aircrafts. This transition allows for the use of more mainline aircraft and ultimately offer 12% more seats per departure compared to last year.
• United Airlines expects this Independence Day weekend to be its busiest on record with more than 5 million passengers forecasted to fly United - airline wide - between June 28 and July 8, up more than 7% compared to last year.

Houston isn’t the only city seeing record passenger numbers.

According to data from the TSA, the top five busiest days ever have all been in 2024.

Nine of the top ten busiest days ever recorded are now post-pandemic travel days, a sure sign that travelers are ready to set into the sky once again.

“They’re ready and it’s time,” said Ashley Kelsey, who’s flying home to North Carolina. “We’re good. Let’s start traveling.”

In order to get to your destination, both United Airlines and the Houston Airports System is encouraging all travelers to arrive at least three hours before their flights.

“We don’t want you missing the cruises. We don’t want you missing the dinner dates, any of that,” Slay said.