ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando International Airport saw a steady stream of travelers Sunday as millions of Americans across the country made their way home after the Thanksgiving holiday. Despite predictions that this would be one of the busiest travel days of the season, operations at MCO remained surprisingly smooth.
Airport arrival boards showed most inbound flights touching down on time throughout the day. Departures were flowing well, too, though scattered delays affected some travelers trying to return home after the long weekend (apologies to all of those United Airlines passengers heading to Newark – they were not having a good day).
And neither were some other places across the nation.
[VIDEO: Nearly 2M travelers expected at Orlando International Airport for Thanksgiving holiday period]
A powerful Thanksgiving weekend storm blanketed parts of the Midwest in snow and ice, creating ripple effects across the country and forcing airlines to juggle delays and cancellations. But in Central Florida, the scene was dramatically different. As planes taxied and took off from Orlando, passengers were treated to a warm, cloud-splashed sunset instead of snow-covered runways, roads, and highways.
For some travelers, the day wasn’t entirely hiccup-free. Julie Clay and her family, headed back to Louisville, found themselves stalled by a departure delay of about half an hour.
“Probably at this point, maybe 30 minutes,” she said when we asked her how long she had been waiting near her gate. Even so, Clay was unfazed – and even a little bit impressed. “It’s been rather smooth, actually. I thought it would be worse, being a very big travel holiday, but it’s been very smooth.”
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Others shared similar experiences.
Jeff and Donna Stehower arrived from Arizona after a cross-country flight that was busy but largely uneventful.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” Jeff and Donna said. “It was busy in Phoenix. Very busy. We had to wait.”
But overall, the couple described their trip as manageable, despite the crowds and minor delays.
Thanksgiving fell unusually late this year, placing it just over three weeks before Christmas. That means Central Florida and airports across the country will be gearing up again soon for another wave of peak travel.
Nationally, the TSA is expected to screen more than 18 million passengers over the Thanksgiving holiday period with more than 3 million of those passengers today. Airlines have added staff and increased capacity to accommodate the seasonal surge as this year’s holiday travel has the potential to set records for air travel volume.
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Industry insiders flagged a potential snag for the holiday weekend when Airbus announced earlier in the week that it had detected a problem with a recent software upgrade on aircraft across the A320 family (A318s, A319s, A320s, and A321s). Both older “ceo” and newer “neo” versions of the A320s and A321s are also affected. More than 6,000 aircraft (slightly more than half of 11,300 world fleet) were flagged for potential problems, but only about 1,600 U.S. registered planes needed immediate attention. American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, and United are all A320 customers.
The problem stemmed from a vulnerability to data corruption caused – of all things – by solar flares. The fix was relatively easy: A two-hour procedure that basically rolled back the software for the Elevator and Aileron Computers (ELAC) to a previous version. The problem was discovered after both Airbus and the FAA investigated an incident aboard a JetBlue A320-232 that occurred on October 30, 2025, in which the aircraft experienced an unexpected altitude drop in mid-flight.