Over 1,500 were canceled on Boxing Day
New York – In the world, over 1,500 flights were scheduled today, Sunday 26 December, and which have been canceled due to the epidemiological situation. Overall, between Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day were more than 6,000 canceled flights, of which about a thousand referable to the United States (international or domestic flights), according to what the Flightaware website reports. Compounding the chaos of travel to the US is bad weather in the west of the country.
Many airlines have staff shortages problems because there are pilots, flight attendants and other professionals who are Covid-positive or quarantined for exposure to confirmed cases. Lufthansa, Delta, United Airlines, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines are some of the airlines that have been forced to cancel their flights during one of the peak times of the year.
Flightaware data showed that United canceled nearly 200 flights on Friday and nearly 250 on Saturday, about 10% of those scheduled. There was a rush to reroute pilots and planes and reassign employees, but the Omicron wave has disrupted business.
“Omicron’s national spike in cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people running our operations,” United said in a statement Friday. “As a result, we have unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are alerting affected customers in advance of their arrival at the airport,” the airline said. Likewise, Delta canceled 310 flights on Saturday and it was already canceling several dozen more on Sunday, claiming it had “exhausted all options and resources, including redirecting and replacing aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flights.” “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their vacation travel plans,” the company said.
The cancellations added to the frustration of the pandemic for many people eager to be reunited with their families over the holidays, after last year’s Christmas was severely curtailed. Chinese airlines have recorded the highest number of cancellations, with China Eastern which canceled more than 1,000 flights, over 20% of its flight schedule, Friday and Saturday, and Air China also blocked about 20% of its scheduled departures over the period.
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