Thanksgiving – be careful what you give thanks for

opinion

by Alasdair Whyte

December 1, 2025

About a third of Americans formally gave thanks for different things as they sat around their dining room table last week. But sometimes you need to know when to keep quiet. If Uncle Jim is still furious about his airline trip from hell, you should not get up and give thanks to airlines for being rubbish and driving business to you. But it is fine to think it.

We will never know how many people have been tempted to fly on a business jet because of terrible experiences flying commercial. Charter broker Amalfi Jets has been using this for a well-received social media campaign with the snappy slogan: “Stuck at the gate and feeling blue. Amalfi Jets will rescue you.”

But Uncle Jim has a point. Roughly three out of every 10 flights in the US are delayed, according to the US Bureau of Transport Statistics. Analytics expert Cirium says North American airlines alone cancelled 5,364 flights in October 2025. You might have expected this figure to be higher because of the government shutdown, but this is down on 6,042 the year before. Asian-Pacific carriers cancelled 14,793 flights, down from 25,901 in 2024.

Even if you make your flight, there is no guarantee that your bags will. SITA, the airline IT company, estimates that about seven bags per 1,000 passengers were “mishandled” in 2024. SITA says 77% of mishandled bags were delayed, 18% had been tampered with, and 5% completely lost or stolen and never seen a gain. To be fair, airlines are getting better. In 2017 it says that 19 bags per one thousand were mishandled.

Anecdotally, these numbers feel low. Luggage Losers – a website that relies on social media posts from annoyed travellers who have lost bags – estimates that one Indian low-cost airline loses one bag out of every 46. The site was founded by someone whose girlfriend lost their suitcase.

But even though the long-term trend is improving, as passenger numbers increase more bags are being lost. An extra one billion people flew in 2024 compared with 2023. This means airlines and airports mishandled 10m more bags than in 2023. SITA is predicting airline passenger numbers to rise by another five billion by 2040.

So even if they are getting better, there are a lot of reasons to be thankful that airlines are continuing to drive traffic to business aviation. Well, at least until you have to fly commercial.