Thousands of would-be travellers acquired the identical troubling message Thursday: a last-minute cancellation of their Christmas Eve flight due to the current spike of coronavirus circumstances.
United Airlines cancelled at the least 150 flights scheduled to depart dozens of airports Friday — together with 44 extra that have been purported to take off Saturday, in response to Flight Aware. Other airways, together with Delta, JetBlue and Allegiant, did the identical.
In Australia, dozens of flights have been additionally cancelled at airports within the main cities of Sydney and Melbourne as coronavirus circumstances within the nation surged to their highest because the begin of the pandemic.
The variety of cancellations globally as of Friday morning added as much as greater than 1,600, the Flight Aware web site confirmed.
It was the most recent blow to the vacation season triggered primarily by the brand new and extremely transmissible omicron variant, which now accounts for greater than 70% of latest coronavirus circumstances within the United States. Nearly 170,000 persons are testing constructive day-after-day within the nation, a 38% improve over the previous two weeks, in response to The New York Times’ coronavirus tracker.
In its assertion, United mentioned that omicron’s “direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation” led to the cancellations. Crew members had been calling in sick, in response to spokesperson Joshua Freed, who mentioned that United alerted clients as quickly because it might. And whereas Freed mentioned he didn’t anticipate the airline to cancel extra flights, it remained a risk.
“We are really managing this day by day,” he mentioned. “There may be some more flight cancellations for Saturday. It’s possible.”
In its assertion, the airline mentioned it was working to rebook as many individuals as potential in time for the vacations.
Customers took to social media to air their grievances concerning the cancellations.
In Australia, which has recorded greater than 500 omicron circumstances, many airline employees members are unable to work after being recognized as shut contacts of constructive coronavirus circumstances, airline officers mentioned. Under authorities necessities, they’re required to isolate for seven days.
“A large number of our frontline team members are being required to test and isolate as close contacts given the increasing number of cases in the general community,” a consultant for Jetstar Airways mentioned by e-mail on Friday afternoon native time. “As a result, we have had to make some late adjustments to our schedule.”
Eighty flights arriving at and departing on Dec. 24 from Sydney, the nation’s most populous metropolis, had been cancelled, a spokesperson for the airport mentioned, out of a complete of 500.
According to Melbourne Airport’s flight-tracking web site, greater than 70 flights departing or arriving from the airport on Dec. 24 had additionally been scrapped, out of 700 flights. Brisbane Airport mentioned that 45 flights had been cancelled.
