Many New Yorkers Skip Airport Gridlock for Moynihan Trains as Delays Drag On

Strained air travel and creaky airport infrastructure are nudging New Yorkers onto the rails, with implications for the city’s transport future.

As the leaves turned and turkeys beckoned, a tide of New Yorkers bypassed airport security and headed for tracks rather than tarmacs this Thanksgiving. Moynihan Train Hall, the city’s stately gateway to the Northeast Corridor, thrummed with families like the Gibsons—four strong, laden with backpacks and even a scooter too unwieldy for a jet overhead bin—choosing Amtrak over LaGuardia, Kennedy, or Newark. The reason? A year of chaotic air travel portends an autumn of packed trains and a signal shift in how metropolitan denizens are moving.

The facts are sobering for aviation loyalists. This year, erratic flight delays, fed by a nationwide air traffic controller shortage and amplified in New York’s perpetually busy skies, made the ordeal of airport travel particularly fraught. The latest federal government shutdown only aggravated matters, forcing the Department of Transportation to mandate a temporary 10% reduction in flights at 40 major hubs, New York’s not least among them. Although official pronouncements from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy promised that staffing woes were now “back to normal,” confidence among travelers like Alexandra Gibson remained distinctly tepid.

The numbers underscore the disruption’s scale. The Port Authority anticipates that 3.3 million people will pass through New York’s four airports during the Thanksgiving window—a paltry uptick of roughly 1% from 2024. Amtrak, meanwhile, is coy on its current New York ridership, but hints that last year’s 1.1 million national Thanksgiving travelers will be handily surpassed. Turnstiles at Penn Station and bus depots report brisk business, suggesting a material modal shift away from air, at least over short-to-medium distances this season.

For the city, the implications are tangible. Old habits die hard in New York, a city whose economy and social networks intertwine tightly with rapid mobility. Yet jammed airports and missed connections risk disrupting business, straining family ties and eroding the metropolitan promise of frictionless movement. The steady clogging of local skies may add another layer of discontent for the city’s already harried commuters, who must now contend with a less reliable aviation sector during peak corridors.

Economic ripple effects abound. Frustrated travelers may spend less before embarking, and local businesses near airports—parking garages, car services, terminal shops—may see flatlining revenues. On the flip side, increased rail and bus patronage could invigorate restaurants, retailers, and services in areas adjacent to Penn, Grand Central, and suburban stations, redistributing the bounty. For a transit system perennially starved for capital, extra fare revenue is welcome, if not transformative.

More subtle, though, are the long-term incentives at play. If enough New Yorkers come to view the train as the more civilized—and less delay-prone—option, the balance of infrastructure lobbying may tip further toward electrified rail and away from further airport expansion. That aligns with climate imperatives, as transport is New York’s second-largest source of carbon emissions. Green-minded policymakers may seize on this moment, nudging state and federal handouts toward yet more costly tunneling and high-speed rail electrification.

Nor is New York alone in this conundrum. Across Europe and Asia, high-speed and regional rail have grown buoyant as airlines founder on the rocks of congestion and staff shortages. France’s ban on short-haul domestic flights where trains suffice is one example, if a draconian one. While the United States’ rail infrastructure remains threadbare by comparison—a fact lamented at length by transit wonks—New York’s intrinsic density and close proximity to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. make it unusually ripe for intercity rail growth.

Rail renaissance or reversion to the mean?

Yet scepticism is warranted. Americans are notoriously fickle in their travel loyalties, and a return to “normal” levels of air service—whenever that finally arrives—could see rails and buses emptied just as rapidly as they filled. Amtrak’s spotty reliability, frequent delays on the Northeast Corridor, and limited capacity during holidays still leave much to be desired. Investment in signalling, double-track expansion, and punctual service has lagged, as has the political appetite for funding these upgrades at a federal scale.

Moreover, rail travel’s gains, while worth noting, may not portend a gargantuan shake-up. Trains typically absorb only a fraction of total passenger miles compared to aviation. And the Northeast Corridor, though busy, serves a sliver of the nation’s holiday journeys. Once the current run of misery at TSA lines and baggage claims abates, many New Yorkers—creatures of habit—may revert to the convenience of air, particularly for far-flung destinations.

Still, the slow erosion of public faith in reliable air travel, abetted by persistent staff shortages and creaking radar infrastructure, could gradually rewire consumer expectations—especially if train operators seize the moment and improve their own service. A passenger like Brenda Fisher, bound for Poughkeepsie and “not expecting the train to be delayed and wait in the train station overnight,” may soon demand punctuality and comfort as the norm, not the exception, at both rail hubs and airports.

From a national vantage, the U.S. lags peers in both systemic transportation resilience and redundancy. Debacles such as the 43-day federal shutdown, which rippled so painfully through New York’s gateways, point to a pressing need for smarter investment in cross-modal flexibility. Resilient cities are ones that offer alternatives when one mode flounders—a lesson the Big Apple for now appears to be learning through gritted teeth and grumbling commuters.

The classical-liberal in us sees both pain and promise in this year’s Thanksgiving shuffle. The market—prodded by delays, if not by design—may succeed where five-year plans failed in nudging more travelers toward energy-efficient, lower-impact rail. But if politicians, agencies, and operators fail to match that demand with greater supply and reliability, the temporary rail boom may soon resemble so many New York fads: briefly in vogue, then consigned to memory as disruption abates.

For the moment, though, the crowds at Moynihan suggest a city as adaptable as ever, able to pivot—if not always with glee—from one bottleneck to another. As too often in New York, inconvenience has a tendency to beget modest progress, one fraught journey at a time. ■