New York: Amid the fast increasing spread of infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19 virus, thousands of flights have been cancelled worldwide over the long Christmas weekend and thousands more were delayed, brings holiday travel headaches to millions. According to tracking website Flightaware.com, a total of 2,539 flights were scrubbed around the globe on Christmas Day, including 889 originating from or headed to US airports, with 4,758 delays as of 16:30 GMT.
There were around 2,400 cancellations and 11,000 delays on Friday, which fell on Christmas Eve and is typically a heavy day for air travel, while Sunday cancellations have already topped 800, reported AFP.
Pilots, flight attendants and other employees have been calling in sick or having to quarantine after exposure to Covid, forcing Lufthansa, Delta, United Airlines, JetBlue and many other short-staffed carriers to cancel flights during one of the year’s peak travel periods, according to AFP.
A scramble to reroute pilots and planes and reassign employees was underway, but Omicron’s surge has upended business. United Airlines in a statement on Friday 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,” said the airline.
Delta that also scrapped at least 280 flights Saturday and was already cancelling 64 on Sunday, said that it has “exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying.”
“We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans,” the company said.
The cancellations of flight added to the frustration for many people eager to reunite with their families over the holidays, after last year’s Christmas was severely curtailed due to pandemic.
As per AFP report, Chinese airlines accounted for the highest number of cancellations, with China Eastern scrapping 1,000 flights, over 20 percent of its flight plan, on Friday and Saturday and Air China also grounding about 20 percent of its scheduled departures over the period.
Covid-19 infections have surged in many countries including the United States and United Kingdom in recent days due to the highly transmissible variant Omicron, which was first detected in November.
As per Reuters’ report, Omicron now accounts for nearly three-quarters of US cases and as many as 90 per cent in some areas, such as the Eastern Seaboard. The average number of new US coronavirus cases has risen 45 per cent to 179,000 per day over the past week, according to a Reuters tally.
In UK also, the government data showed a record tally of 122,186 new infections were reported on Friday, marking a third day in which the number of known cases has surpassed 100,000. One in 20 Londoners had Covid-19 last week, a figure that could rise to one in 10 by early next week, according to data released on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics, reported Reuters.
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