Scores of the airlines across the world have cancelled flights as crews have been grounded amid surging COVID-19 infections due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant, forcing tens of thousands of Christmas travellers to change their plans.
More than 6,000 flights have been cancelled worldwide over the long Christmas weekend and thousands more were delayed, according to a tracking website, as the highly infectious Omicron variant brings holiday hurt to millions.
Globally, airlines scrapped about 2,200 flights as of Sunday morning, down from more than 2,800 from the day before, FlightAware’s data showed.
Commercial airlines canceled more than 720 flights within, into or out of the United States on Sunday, according to FlightAware’s tally.
This was slightly down from nearly 1,000 on Christmas Day but around the same level as Christmas Eve, and further cancellations were likely. In addition, more than 1,400 flights were delayed.
Pilots, flight attendants and other employees have been calling in sick or having to quarantine after exposure to COVID-19, forcing Lufthansa, Delta, United Airlines, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and many other short-staffed carriers to cancel flights during one of the year’s peak travel periods.
“Help @united flight cancelled again. I want to get home for Christmas,” one exasperated traveller from the US state of Vermont tweeted to the airline early Saturday.
“Numbers from the Transportation Security Administration say that on Saturday, Christmas day, 1.5 million people traveled on airlines in the US, passing through airports,” Elizondo said, adding that cases of the Omicron variant have been rising.
“Just in New York City, there were 44,000 new cases on Friday; that was the last reporting day. That’s a record for the entire pandemic,” Elizondo said.
“Health experts are saying that this new Omicron variant should probably peak in early to mid January – that’s the estimate in the US. Airlines might have to be dealing with these staff shortages for days and perhaps even a few more weeks.”
