More than 2,800 flights were canceled this Monday due to the advance of the omicron variant
New York (CNN Business) -- More than 2,800 flights have been canceled this Monday around the world due to the advancement of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
According to the tracking website FlightAware, about 1,000 of the canceled flights had destinations within, to or from the United States. In addition, more than 11,000 flights are delayed.
Worldwide, airlines canceled more than 6,000 flights on Christmas Eve, Christmas and the day after Christmas. In the United States, more than 1,200 flights were canceled and more than 5,000 were delayed on Sunday as staff and crews were absent due to illness.
The cancellations come at the busiest time of the year for air travel. The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said it screened millions of people each day over the holiday weekend, peaking at 2.19 million travelers on Thursday, December 23. On Wednesday, more people passed through TSA checkpoints than on the same day in 2019.
Delta Airlines passenger planes on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, on December 24, 2021. (Credit: YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
On Saturday, air travel was affected by flight cancellations: a relatively smaller number of 1.53 million people passed through security checks on Saturday.
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Alaska Airlines, which canceled 133 flights, 19% of its operations on Monday, attributes the cancellations and delays to winter weather in the Pacific Northwest. The airline says it canceled about 250 flights due to arrive or depart from Seattle on Sunday. As of Monday afternoon, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport holds the world record for cancellations and delays, according to FlightAware.
"We are working as quickly as possible to reschedule all affected passengers on other flights, while maintaining the safety of our operations," Alaska Airlines said in a statement. "Reservations are experiencing extremely long wait times, up to 11 hours."
United Airlines (UAL) said last week that it had to cancel hundreds of flights because it did not have enough crew members to safely fly all of its scheduled routes.
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"The increase in omicron cases across the country this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operations," read a United memo obtained by CNN.
Delta (DAL) said it was working to get all stranded travelers home as quickly as possible.
"We apologize to our customers for the delay in their vacation travel plans," Delta said in a statement. "The people of Delta are working hard to get them where they need to be as quickly and safely as possible on the next available flight."
International flights
European airlines are experiencing cancellations, albeit in smaller numbers, due to the unparalleled increase in Covid-19 cases in several countries in the region.
A British Airways spokesman told CNN on Monday that the airline had canceled "a number of flights due to operating restrictions" and are instead using larger planes, where possible, to take travelers to their destinations. According to FlightAware, British Airways canceled 46 flights on Monday.
Virgin Atlantic told CNN that its flights are continuing "as planned," with the exception of one of its itineraries from London Heathrow to New York's JFK Airport which suffered a cancellation on December 21. A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson told CNN: "We continue to take precautionary measures to maintain the resilience of our operations and staff, always putting the safety and health of our customers and partners first."
German airline Lufthansa said it will cancel 10% of its winter flight itinerary as the pandemic continues to affect the aviation sector.
In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung last week, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr stated that due to "a sharp drop in bookings" the airline will have to cancel 33,000 flights from mid-January to February 2022. , that is, 10% of the group's winter flight schedule.
Spohr's comments were confirmed to CNN by the Lufthansa press office.
With information from Chris Liakos, Sonnet Swire, Pete Muntean, and Andy Rose.
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