US flight cancellations ease a bit but still running high

Clearing weather over much of the eastern United States raised hopes that air-travel disruptions will ease after a dreadful start to the new year.

By late Tuesday morning on the East Coast, airlines had scrubbed more than 1,200 flights for the day. That’s a very high number but not compared with Monday’s disruptions, which included more than 3,200 canceled flights.

Southwest Airlines canceled more than 300 flights, or 10% of its schedule Tuesday.

The number of canceled flights began rising Dec. 24, and several airlines blamed it on crew shortages due to the spreading omicron variant of COVID-19. Over the weekend, the sickouts were compounded by winter storms that swept across the country.

About 2,700 U.S. flights were canceled on Saturday and a similar number were grounded Sunday. Thousands more were delayed. In all, about 20,000 U.S. flights have been canceled since Christmas Eve, according to Flightaware figures.