Christmas travel chaos as airlines cancel more
than 4,500 flights
Passengers returning home for festive season face
worldwide disruption as Omicron leaves airlines short-staffed
Clea
Skopeliti and agencies
Sat 25 Dec
2021 03.25 GMT
Passengers
travelling over the Christmas holiday have been hit with disruption worldwide
after airline companies cancelled more than 4,500 flights, according to a
flight tracking website.
A surge of
cancellations on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day came as the rapidly spreading
Omicron coronavirus variant meant carriers were unable to staff their flights.
The website
of the flight tracking firm FlightAware showed that 2,175 flights around the
world had been scrapped on Christmas Eve, a typically heavy day for travel.
Around a quarter of those were in the US. Another 1,779 flights were scrapped
worldwide on Christmas Day, along with 402 more that had been scheduled for
Sunday.
The bulk of
the cancellations came from five firms, with China Eastern cancelling 474
journeys, while Air China scrapped 188. United cancelled 177 flights, Air India
160 and Delta called off 150.
United
said: “The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact
on our flight crews and the people who run our operation. As a result, we’ve
unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in
advance of them coming to the airport.”
Meanwhile,
Delta said it had “exhausted all options and resources – including rerouting
and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying – before
cancelling around 90 flights for Friday”. The airline blamed the impact of the
Omicron variant and weather conditions for the cancellations.
In response
to the pre-holiday chaos, airlines have called for the relaxation of quarantine
rules for vaccinated staff.
Delta’s
chief executive, Ed Bastian, has asked the head of the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce the self-isolation period for vaccinated
people experiencing breakthrough infections from 10 to five days. Airlines for
America and JetBlue seconded the request.
Airlines’ social
media feeds have been filled with frustrated passengers asking for assistance
after a spate of cancellations on Christmas Eve owing to the rapidly spreading
Omicron variant.
“@Delta
really?! You cancel my Christmas Eve flight at 12:30am?? I got up at 2am to get
to the airport with my baby and husband and don’t see the cancellation till I’m
at the airport to get my bags checked,” one passenger tweeted at the airline on
Friday – one of several similar messages directed at carriers that have had to
call off flights.
Despite the
uncertainties and grim news around the world, millions of Americans carried on
with travel plans through a second pandemic-clouded holiday season.
Moses
Jimenez, an accountant from Long Beach, Mississippi, flew to New York with his
wife and three children, even though the latest torrent of coronavirus cases
dashed their hopes of catching a Broadway performance of Hamilton or visit some
museums.
Hamilton
was one of a dozen productions to cancel shows this week as cast and crew
members tested positive for Covid-19. Museums were scratched from the family’s
itinerary because many now require proof of vaccination and the two younger
children are ineligible for the shot.
Jimenez,
33, said his family would make the best of roaming the city’s streets and
parks, while also seeing relatives and friends.
“We just
wanted to get out of the house, really, get the kids out to the city for
Christmas,” Jimenez told Reuters on Thursday at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
New York
planned to sharply limit the number of people it allows in Times Square for its
annual outdoor New Year’s Eve celebration, in response to the surge of new
coronavirus cases, capping the number of attendees 15,000.
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