(New York) Airlines have had to cancel more than 2,000 flights around the world, nearly a quarter of which are in the United States, especially in the face of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 which disrupts travel during the holidays.
According to the Flightaware website, at 10:40 a.m. there were already at least 2,116 flight cancellations on Friday, 499 of which are related to the United States, whether international or internal. As of Thursday, 2,231 flights had been canceled, according to the same source.
Many companies questioned by AFP referred to the new wave of the pandemic, which particularly affects crews, as one of the main causes linked to these cancellations.
According to Flightaware, United Airlines had to cancel more than 170 flights on Friday, or 9% of those that were scheduled.
“The peak of Omicron cases across the country this week has had a direct impact on our crews and the people who run our operations,” said the company, which said it is working to find solutions to get them out. affected passengers.
PHOTO ELIJAH NEWS, REUTERS
Delta Air Lines employees check in passengers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport.
Delta Air Lines also canceled 145 flights, according to Flightaware, citing both Omicron and, occasionally, adverse weather conditions.
“The Delta teams have exhausted all options and resources” before coming to these cancellations, argues the airline.
More than 10 Alaska Airlines flights, whose employees said they were “potentially exposed to the virus” and had to self-isolate in quarantine, have also been canceled.
These cancellations disrupt the desire to resume travel this year for the Holidays, after a Christmas 2020 hit hard by the pandemic.
According to estimates by the American Automobile Association, more than 109 million Americans were expected to leave their immediate area by plane, train or car between December 23 and January 2 – up 34% from the year last.
For example, the airline American Airlines had planned 5,300 flights Thursday, as many as the two previous days. “This represents 86% of our flight program for the same period of 2019”, during the last holiday season before COVID-19 comes at length to hamper most of the trips, said the company.
But most of these trips had been planned before the outbreak of the highly contagious Omicron variant, which spreads at full speed and forces many people to self-isolate even without symptoms.