More than 3,000 flights canceled globally as airlines cite staff issues linked to COVID-19

More than 3,000 flights scheduled for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have been canceled around the world, according to on the FlightAware website.

About 20% of those canceled for Friday involved travel within, within or outside the United States, FlightAware said.

So far, 4,604 flights have been delayed. About 500 flights are delayed within, to or from the United States on Friday.

United Airlines and Delta Air Lines announced Thursday that they have canceled hundreds of Christmas Eve flights.

United Airlines has confirmed that more than 100 flights that were scheduled for Christmas Eve have been canceled by the company as it grapples with the spread of the omicron variant.

A United spokesperson said on Thursday that “we are seeing around 120 cancellations scheduled for Friday”.

“The national peak of Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operations,” United said in a statement.

“As a result, we unfortunately had to cancel some flights and notify affected customers in advance of their arrival at the airport. We’re sorry for the disruption and are working hard to book as many people as possible and get them on board. their way to the holidays, ”United added.

Delta said Thursday it had “exhausted all options and resources – including rerouting and substitutions of planes and crews to cover scheduled flights – before canceling about 90 flights for Friday.”

JetBlue has also canceled more than 50 flights. Alaska Airlines said in a statement to CNN that he had canceled 17 flights Thursday because of omicron, and that further cancellations were possible on Friday. According to CNN, he canceled 11 additional flights on Friday morning.

Chief Medical Advisor of the White House Antoine FauciAnthony FauciCDC eases isolation rules for health workers amid UK omicron wave COVID-19 cases surpassing 100,000 for the first time Fauci says large holiday gatherings are not safe – even with a PLUS reminder said earlier this week that large gatherings this holiday season are not immune to the coronavirus, even for those who are fully vaccinated with a booster.

He also warned that Christmas trips would increase the spread of the variant even among fully vaccinated people, the BBC reported.

David Powell, a doctor and medical advisor for the International Air Transport Association, a group representing nearly 300 airlines, said in a new interview that passengers on planes are two or three times more likely to be infected with COVID- 19 on a flight since the emergence of the omicron variant.

“Whatever the risk with delta, we would have to assume that the risk would be two to three times greater with omicron, just like we’ve seen in other environments,” said Powell. told Bloomberg News.

The flight cancellations come as Francis Collins, the outgoing director of the National Institutes of Health, warned on Sunday that the United States could start to see 1 million COVID-19 infections per day if Americans do not take precautions against coronaviruses.

The outgoing director of NIH, whose last day was Sunday, cautioned on NPR’s “weekend edition” that the highly transmissible variant of omicron could still trigger millions of infections in the United States, even though it causes milder cases of the virus than other strains, as early studies suggested.