Wave of cancelled flights from Omicron closes out 2021

CHICAGO: More cancelled flights frustrated air travellers on the final day of 2021 and appeared all but certain to inconvenience hundreds of thousands more over the New Year’s holiday weekend.

Airlines blamed many of the cancellations on crew shortages related to the spike in COVID-19 infections, along with wintry weather in parts of the United States, AP reported.

United Airlines, which suffered the most cancellations among the biggest US carriers, agreed to pay pilot bonuses to fix a staffing shortage.

By early evening Friday on the East Coast, airlines had scrubbed more than 1,550 US flights — about 6 per cent of all scheduled flights — and roughly 3,500 worldwide, according to tracking service FlightAware.

That pushed the total US cancellations since Christmas Eve to more than 10,000 and topped the previous single-day peak this holiday season, which was 1,520 on December 26. The disruptions come just as travel numbers climb higher going into the New Year’s holiday weekend. Since December 16, more than 2 million travellers a day on average have passed through US airport security checkpoints, an increase of nearly 100,000 a day since November and nearly double last December.

Led by Southwest and United, airlines have already cancelled 1,500 US flights on Saturday — about 700 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, where the forecast called for a winter storm — and 700 more on Sunday. Cancelled flights began rising from a couple hundred a day shortly before Christmas, most notably for United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways.

On Friday, United cancelled more than 200 flights, or 11 per cent of its schedule, and that did not include cancellations on the United Express regional affiliate.