Almost 2,000 flights canceled on Sunday in the U.S.
Nearly 2,000 flights were already canceled in the U.S. as of Sunday morning, as airlines grapple with a spike in COVID-19 cases and bad weather.
A total of 1,956 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled on Sunday, according to FlightAware. Another 870 flights in the U.S. had been delayed.
More than 3,600 flights were cancelled around the world on Sunday, more than half of them U.S. flights, adding to the toll of holiday week travel disruptions due to adverse weather and the surge in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) earlier warned of more travel delays in the coming days because of COVID-19 infections among FAA employees and “weather and heavy seasonal traffic.”
Air travel witnessed a chaotic start to the year at a time when considered typically a peak time for air travel. More than 3,600 flights had been cancelled on Sunday, according to a running tally on the tracking website FlightAware.
Several airlines including JetBlue Airways, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, blamed bad weather and a spike in COVID-19 infections driven by the fast-spreading omicron variant among crews. “While we’re expecting a full recovery in 2022, it is going to be a year of two halves,” said JetBlue’s CEO Robin Hayes. “Our traditional trough periods, especially these next few weeks after the holidays and as COVID-19 cases climb, are going to be tough.”
In the past 10 days, including Sunday and Christmas Eve, airlines have canceled more than 14,000 flights in the U.S.
U.S. authorities reported at least 346,869 new coronavirus on Saturday. The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 rose by at least 377 to 828,562.
