Over 400 U.S. Flights Canceled on Christmas Eve as Omicron Surges
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Hundreds of U.S. flights were canceled on Friday, causing headaches for travelers heading home for Christmas.
According to the airline tracker FlightAware, 461 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled today, with United Airlines and Delta being hit the hardest among U.S.-based airlines.
FlightAware noted that 170 United flights were canceled (or 9% of its flights), and 138 Delta flights were canceled (or 6% of its flights).
The primary U.S. destinations that are impacted are Los Angeles and Newark, NJ with 29 incoming flights canceled, Chicago O’Hare with 23 cancelations, and Houston Bush with 21 cancelations. The top U.S.-origin airports with the most cancelations are Newark (37 canceled), Atlanta (30), Chicago O’Hare (23), Los Angeles (22), and New York JFK (21).
Another 210 flights within, into or out of the U.S. have been canceled for Christmas Day, with Delta and United again being the two most impacted U.S. airlines.
A spokesperson for United attributed the cancelations to the Omicron variant disrupting staffing.
“The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” a spokesperson for United told Fox Business. “As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport. We’re sorry for the disruption and are working hard to rebook as many people as possible and get them on their way for the holidays.”
Delta similarly attributed the cancelations to Omicron and weather, and told Reuters it “exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying — before canceling around 90 flights for Friday.”
The impacts of Omicron on airlines, however, is far from just a U.S. issue, where Covid cases numbered over 250,000 on Thursday, with an estimated 73% being from Omicron.
FlightAware noted that more than 2,000 flights for Thursday have been canceled worldwide, and another 1,200 flights were canceled for Friday.
Melbourne-based Jetstar Airways, which had 34 Thursday cancelations, told the New York Times that “a large number of our frontline team members are being required to test and isolate as close contacts given the increasing number of cases in the general community,” and “as a result, we have had to make some late adjustments to our schedule.”
Amid the Omicron-related flight cancelations, the Biden administration is lifting its travel ban on eight African countries that was instated due to concerns about Omicron. The ban was criticized for targeting that select group of countries despite the variant being detected elsewhere, including in the U.S.
According to the Times, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised the administration that Omicron had become so common across the globe that restricting travel to just those eight African countries no longer made sense.
