Due to various concerns, including staffing issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, airlines continued to delay hundreds of flights on Saturday, interrupting holiday festivities at one of the busiest travel times of the year, AP reports.
On Saturday, flight tracker FlightAware reported roughly 1,000 canceled routes arriving, leaving, or within the United States, up from 690 on Friday. More than 250 flights have already been canceled on Sunday. FlightAware does not provide an explanation for why flights are canceled.
The omicron strain was generating staffing issues, which resulted in flight cancellations, according to Delta, United, and JetBlue. Understaffing will still be causing cancellations, according to United spokesman Maddie King, and it’s unclear when regular operations will resume. The impact of omicron on personnel was “unexpected,” she added. Delta and JetBlue did not reply to inquiries.
According to FlightAware, and over 10% of the three carriers’ scheduled Saturday flights were canceled. According to FlightAware, American Airlines abruptly canceled more than 90 flights on Saturday, accounting for around 3% of its total schedule.
The cancellations were due to “COVID-related illness calls,” according to American spokeswoman Derek Walls. Due to coronavirus-related personnel issues, European and Australian airlines have also postponed holiday-season flights.
Their new trip, which is scheduled for Monday evening, includes a stopover in Paris, and they are concerned that there may be problems there as well. They’ve already canceled a large family gathering set for Saturday.
As of Saturday evening, according to FlightAware’s statistics, airlines had canceled well over 6,000 flights worldwide on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with about one-third of those affecting flights to, from, or within the United States.
Numerous canceled flights were operated by Chinese companies, and Chinese airports dominated FlightAware’s list of the ones with the highest number of cancellations. It was unclear why this was the case. China has strong pandemic control measures in place, including regular lockdowns, which the authorities implemented at the beginning of this week in Xi’an, a metropolis of 13 million people.
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