Thousands of flights across the globe are canceled Monday following a weekend of travel issues as COVID cases continue to spike.
More than 2,200 flights have been canceled Monday, including at least 780 within, into, or out of the United States, according to FlightAware. More than 5,000 flights are delayed.
As far as the major U.S. airlines, United Airlines has canceled 87 flights, 4% of its total flights for the day; American Airlines has canceled 79 flights, 2% of its total flights for the day; Delta Air Lines has canceled 60 flights, 2% of its total flights for the day; and Spirit Airlines has canceled 36 flights, 4% of its total flights for the day, according to FlightAware data.
Alaska Airlines has also canceled 91 flights scheduled for Monday, 13% of its total flights, and JetBlue has canceled 66 flights, 6% of its total flights for the day.
U.S. airports dealing with the most cancelations include Seattle-Tacoma International, Newark Liberty International, Denver International, Los Angeles International and Chicago O'Hare International.
Since Christmas Eve, more than 6,000 flight have been canceled around the globe, leaving many travelers stranded for the holiday weekend.
The scrapped flights were largely blamed on airline staffing shortages caused by the latest surge in coronavirus cases, fueled by the Omicron variant. Weather issues were also causing some of the cancellations.
"The nationwide spike in omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation," United said in a statement. "As a result, we've unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport."
Delta also said it was working hard to reschedule passengers, explaining that the cancelations were made only after the airline "exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying."
Travelers are urged to check their flight status before heading to the airport.
The U.S. is currently averaging more than 176,000 COVID cases a day.
Related
Latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the highly transmissible Omicron variant makes up 73 percent of coronavirus cases in the U.S. The director of the CDC went above that on Wednesday, saying Omicron accounts for 90% of COVID cases in some parts of the country.
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