Airlines thought their pandemic troubles were behind them in the fall as a coronavirus wave subsided and travelers increasingly took to the skies. But with the new COVID-19 surge brought on by the Omicron variant, along with winter storms, has left the airlines and their passengers in a holiday mess.
More than 1,200 U.S. flights have been canceled Friday and nearly 600 have been delayed, according to FlightAware, which tracks flight status in real-time. There have been more than 9,000 cancellations and more than 45,000 delays within, to, or from the U.S. since Christmas Eve.
“We look at flights but see, the thing is they’re connected to people,” said Captain Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines pilot and spokesperson for their pilots’ union, Allied Pilots Association, reports USA Today. “For each one of those passengers, there may be five to 10 family members and friends that were counting on them being at the holiday table.”
But the big problem is that the Omicron variant has cut deeply into the airlines’ ability to staff flights, even with the majority of crew members being vaccinated.
“I’ve never seen a meltdown like this in my life,” said Angelo Cucuzza, the director of organizing at the Transport Workers Union, which represents flight attendants at JetBlue, reports the New York Times. “They just can’t keep up with the number of folks that are testing positive.”
JetBlue has been one of the hardest-hit of the carriers, canceling 17 percent of its flights on Thursday. The airline said Wednesday that it would cut about 1,280 flights through mid-January, citing the rise in virus cases in the Northeast, where its operations and crews are concentrated.
The weather also bears mentioning, and it has been particularly challenging this holiday season. This past week has seen heavy snowfall and record lows across the Pacific Northwest, causing delays and cancellations.
This weekend doesn’t look much better, travel-wise. Storms in Southern California and the Northwest could combine to dump snow on airline hubs in Denver and Chicago.
Meanwhile, severe thunderstorms will be threatening Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, too, according to Dan DePodwin, director of forecast operations at AccuWeather.
As many as 10 million people are expected to fly from Thursday through Monday, according to Transportation Security Administration estimates.
