The cancellation of COVID-related flights continued on Monday as well.
Airlines around the world canceled less than 8,000 flights over the three-day Christmas weekend due to the spread of the Omicron edition and staff shortages due to bad weather.
According to flightware.com, which tracks flight departures, delays and cancellations, 1,639 more flights were canceled on Monday, with just under a third affecting the US alone. A significant number of cancellations also affected China.
The cancellations came as a major disruption to the return of Christmas travel this year, causing further anxiety and uncertainty after the 2020 holiday season was severely hit by the pandemic.
Passengers express their dismay at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport in the state of Minnesota.
“I booked this trip in February and didn’t know we’d still be dealing with COVID, it’s crazy,” Tamera Robinson said of her canceled flight.
Flight delays and cancellations related to staff shortages have been a frequent problem for the US airline industry this year.
After air travel shut down last year, American airlines encouraged employees to quit.
But this year air travel has mostly recovered and they have left themselves with less staff.
United Airlines said in a statement that the spike in Omicron cases had a “direct impact” on their flight crew and the people running their operations.
“As a result, we have unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying affected customers prior to their arrival at the airport,” the company said.
And other airlines like Lufthansa are also facing staff shortages as more and more pilots and cabin crew members report being sick with the virus or forced into quarantine on arrival in some countries.
Chinese airlines, notably China Eastern and Air China, canceled more than 2,000 flights over the three-day weekend alone, many of them to Xi’an, where 13 million people are currently under lockdown.
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