Morning Brew Daily
The Busiest Holiday Travel Weekend in 15 Years & 80 Million Pounds of Cranberries
27 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Thanksgiving travel this year?
Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, a Thanksgiving feast with a side of business.
We'll stuff you with fun facts to bring up at the meal. The rest will be gravy. It's Thursday, November 27th. Let's eat.
Happy Thanksgiving. As you all go about your day, we have a feeling that many of your plans will follow a similar itinerary. You'll watch a certain parade broadcast from New York City. Some cooking and some eating, obviously. A little bit of football and maybe a neighborhood walk. And of course, listening to your distant relatives share their off-color opinions.
Toby and I are going to do our best tour guide impressions and dive into each of these events alongside you and give a little business insight and context to each one.
Chapter 2: How is the Department of Transportation addressing airline civility?
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Chapter 3: Why do people love the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?
To start off your Thanksgiving holiday, you likely got to travel to your turkey day. If you flew, I would bet your attire was on the comfy, cozy side, maybe some sweatpants and an MBD sweatshirt. But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy isn't a fan of your getup. The DOT recently launched a civility initiative aimed at bringing back the golden age of travel.
The purpose is to jumpstart a nationwide conversation about restoring courtesy and class to air travel. That includes helping others with their overhead luggage, thanking flight attendants and pilots, and dressing with respect. Now, if your immediate reaction to that is, you're not my mom, Sean Duffy, you don't get to tell me how I should act at the airport, that's fair.
Faced with reduced legroom, tighter seating density, fewer amenities, and more delays, it's no wonder flyers aren't bringing happy-go-lucky vibes to the airport. But Duffy and the Department of Transportation do have the data that backs up their concerns. Since 2021, nearly 14,000 instances of unruly passengers have been reported.
There's been a 400% increase since 2019, including a record 5,900 in 2021. A lot of those were tied to mask mandates during COVID, but incidents remain historically elevated. Neil, should we all be wearing suits to the airport again?
Never.
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Chapter 4: What interesting facts are there about cranberries during Thanksgiving?
And I think that was generally the consensus among people online when they saw this presentation and this call from Sean Duffy to dress up at the airport because you got so many things going against you at the airport. Why do you need to put on some uncomfortable clothing? Me, I guess I go full athleisure, sweatpants.
I still keep my shoes on, even during long flights, as a sign of respect to the people around me. But I also don't think it's the worst thing in the world if you're flying overseas. You know, get a little comfy in that respect also. You said it has the data to back them up, but also I want to share some contrarian data.
In 2023, it's the most recent data we have available, the FAA reported almost 2,000 incidents. That is a sharp decline from the peak in 2021. So it seems like now that Masks are over and the pandemic is generally behind us. People are starting to behave more respectfully. What you could say is that people are sharing videos online more often.
And that increased reporting is why we think that airports and planes are a huge chaos at the moment.
Yeah, I mean, we've all seen it.
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Chapter 5: What is a 'fart walk' and why is it gaining popularity?
And actually, the Department of Transportation used those videos to advance their agenda here. They had this promotional video that in the first part, it's a idyllic version of air travel set to Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me. And it's showing, you know, the Pan Am days, the TWA days where people wore suits and had these very luxurious travel experiences.
And then it contrasts that to videos of people fighting in the airport, yelling at each other. putting their feet all over things. It's a very effective contrast. And the general idea is if everyone is just more polite, maybe it even starts with what you're wearing. If you dress not in your pajamas, you might feel more of some kinship and some
You want to be more polite to people around you if you are dressed for that sort of interaction. So obviously, it's going to spark some backlash, though, because what have airlines done is they've stripped away all the amenities that used to make air travel a luxury experience. And that is their weaponizing nostalgia. Air travel at the time was unaffordable for a lot of people.
Now it's a lot more... It's a mass transit system. You wouldn't wear a suit on the subway.
Chapter 6: What is the trend of 'cousin walks' during Thanksgiving gatherings?
You wouldn't dress up to take the bus. Why should you dress up to take an airplane?
A lot of the frustration stems from those carry-ons that you have to take with you because airlines charge $35, $40, $45. to check baggage. So I've gotten pissed trying to get that thing above my seat, my suitcase above my seat, or my backpack below my seat. So you can see the frustration. It's pretty interesting to look at airline clothing policies. What do they require on board?
Do they have any policies? It does vary by airlines. Spirit Airlines, where a lot of these videos are taken. We should admit on the way back and forth to Miami does have a policy update its rules earlier this year, saying that passengers could be banned from boarding if they are, quote, inadequately clothed, including if they are barefoot.
Final note on this, I just want to mention this is not just a U.S. issue.
Chapter 7: How have NFL kickers changed the game this Thanksgiving?
The 1,440 unruly passenger reports last year compared to 730 in 2019. And the UK had double the rate of incidents in 2024 over 2019. So people across the world are just fed up with flying. That said, they're going to be flying a lot this Thanksgiving.
The FAA expects this Thanksgiving holiday from Tuesday to Sunday to be the busiest period for air travel in 15 years, with Tuesday specifically, two days ago, seeing the most air travelers.
Take a train. Take a train if you can.
I am taking a train. I have taken a train. Okay, so you finally arrived at your house, put the suit you were wearing on the plane at the dry cleaners, and wake up in your childhood bed on Thanksgiving morning. What's the game plan? Make a big pot of coffee and turn on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, of course, the tradition now in its 101st year has become more popular than ever.
At a time when other live entertainment broadcasts are hemorrhaging viewers, the three and a half hour Thanksgiving parade has surged to all time highs.
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Chapter 8: What are some unpopular opinions about Thanksgiving traditions?
31.3 million people watched the parade on NBC and Peacock last year, up 10% from the previous record set in 2024. For the past four years, it's been the number one entertainment show on television, crushing everything not named the NFL or presidential debates.
Clearly, people love watching their favorite characters float down New York City's cavernous avenues to Macy's flagship store in Herald Square, where it all began in 1924. During Thanksgiving of that year, Macy's staged what was then a Christmas-themed parade to celebrate the expansion of its store, which at 1.5 million square feet was the world's largest.
Toby, when it comes to viewership of live events, Oscars, way down. Grammys, way down. Emmys, down. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, way up. Why is it bucking the trend?
There's a couple of psychological reasons that play into it. One is the fact that one, it's just a captive audience. There's a lot of people at home. There's a lot of people who just toss the TV on. It's habit at this point. So obviously television ratings are gonna be up when a lot of people are in their homes, you know, cooking their Thanksgiving day meals.
It's also very structured and almost social media friendly in a way in the fact that the segments are five to 10 minute max. It's constantly coming up. It's always moving. There's different characters coming on screen. So if you want to talk about our social media trained brains, it scratches that itch. And then it is a live event. So there is an There is an air of unpredictability to it.
Is it going to be bad weather? Are the balloons going to fly away? So it adds some of that live event flair that live sporting events are so good at creating. So it is almost like a sporting event in the sense that You don't know what's going to happen. And then finally, it's just nostalgic as well. Everyone grew up with the Macy's Day Parade. They want to show their kids.
It passes down through generations. It always starts the same way. It always ends the same way. So there's just that familiar heartbeat to Thanksgiving Day, and the Macy's is right at the center of it.
And another thing is it really captures the audience in middle America, too, in a way a lot of those award shows that we're talking about, viewership going down, does not. There's very little politics going on. No one's getting up. No celebrities are getting up, giving you a speech and grandstanding up there. They have these high school and college marching bands from all over the country.
So if you're from West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas, you are tuning in to see your particular marching band. And then also, if you are a Broadway fan... but you live in Kansas or somewhere that's kind of far from New York City.
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