More than 5,600 flights were canceled by airlines while thousands more were postponed around the world over the Christmas weekend, when the Omicron variant of Covid-19 cut off travel for the holidays. According to the Flightaware website, there have been nearly 2,500 flight cancellations as of 1.40pm on Saturday, of which just over 850 were US-related routes, both international and domestic.
More than 3,500 flights have been delayed around the world. As of Friday, around 2,400 cancellations and nearly 11,000 delays have been recorded, according to the same source, which already has nearly 800 cancellations scheduled for Sunday.
Pilots, flight attendants and other personnel have been quarantined after coming into contact with infected people, forcing Lufthansa, Delta and United Airlines to cancel flights. According to Flightaware, United Airlines had to cancel around 439 flights on Friday and Saturday, about 10% of those scheduled. “The spike in Omicron cases across the country this week has had a direct impact on our crews and the people running our operations,” said the US airline, assuring it is working to find solutions for passengers. Delta Air Lines also canceled 280 flights on Saturday and 170 on Friday, according to Flightaware, citing both Omicron and occasionally bad weather.
“Delta’s teams have exhausted all options and resources” before making these cancellations, the airline said. More than 10 Alaska Airlines flights, whose employees reported “potential exposure to the virus” and had to isolate themselves in quarantine, were also canceled.
Chinese airlines have had the most cancellations: China Eastern has canceled around 540 flights, more than a quarter of its flight schedule, while Air China has had 264 flights, also nearly a quarter of its scheduled departures. The cancellations disrupt the drive to resume travel over the holidays this year, following a pandemic-stricken Christmas in 2020.
According to estimates by the American Automobile Association, more than 109 million Americans were expected to leave their home area by plane, train, or car between December 23 and January 2, a 34% increase from last year. Fortunately, the outages had no impact on Santa’s tour, which North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) has been controlling for 63 years. “It’s been going very well so far, Santa has distributed two billion gifts and he’s over Pakistan right now,” General Eric Kenny told AFP.
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