Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed on Monday as omicron cases surged around the world.
In the United States, 832 flights were canceled and 1,481 flights were delayed, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.
STAFFING SHORTAGES AND OMICRON RESULT IN AIRLINES CANCELING HUNDREDS OF FLIGHTS
“The nationwide spike in omicron cases has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” a spokesperson from United Airlines told the Washington Examiner. “As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights.”
Monday’s cancellations are in keeping with a trend from the Christmas weekend in which roughly 2,000 flights across the U.S. were canceled.
Globally, over 2,346 flights were canceled and 6,110 flights were delayed on Monday, according to FlightAware. Many of the delays came from airlines in China. China Eastern, for example, canceled 421 flights. Air China canceled 198 flights.
Most U.S. cancellations came from Alaska Airlines at 98, United Airlines at 87, and American Airlines at 79.
Despite the recent omicron surge, air travel appears to have rebounded in 2021 from pandemic lows in 2020. The TSA said it screened 1,709,601 people on Christmas Eve. In 2020, it said it had screened 846,520 on Christmas Eve.
This is still down from pre-pandemic levels of 2,552,194 on Christmas Eve in 2019, according to the TSA.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Omicron is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S. The new variant, combined with winter conditions, has made the recent spread of infections the second largest wave since the pandemic began, according to Our World In Data.
