If you made it home for the holidays, you might not make it back when you had originally planned. More than 1,000 flights were canceled in the U.S. on Sunday alone, and thousands more were canceled globally.
The surge of Covid cases due to the Omicron variant led to a shortage of crews on one of the busiest weekends for travel in the calendar year.
On Sunday night, the total was up to more than 1,300 flights with at least one stop within the U.S. Over two times the amount was canceled around the world, with more than 3,000 flights canceled. FlightAware, a company that provides aviation data, released the figures on Sunday night.
This came following thousands of flights canceled worldwide on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The holiday season is an annual high for travel, with many people flying to spend Christmas and the holidays with their families.
This year saw approximately two million people traveling through screening checkpoints every day last week during the week of Christmas. The numbers on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were double that of 2020 figures, when travel was at a record low.
For JetBlue Airlines, 12 percent of flights were canceled by midday Sunday. A spokesperson for the company, Derek Dombrowski, said that the airline came into the holiday season with the highest staffing level record yet since Covid began in late 2019 and set in early 2020. He added though that due to Omicron and positive Covid tests, many have had to call in sick.
United Airlines also pointed to crew staffing concerns in the cancelation of flights. United Airlines had to cancel five percent of its flights by midday Sunday, with 115 flights canceled.
Delta Airlines canceled six percent of its flights by the same time, with roughly 200 canceled by Sunday afternoon and another 40 canceled on Monday. The Delta spokesperson said that the cancelations were a combination between winter storms hitting the country, as well as the Omicron variant.
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