Snowstorms and the daily rising covid-19 cases frustrated air travellers whose return flights home from the holidays were cancelled or delayed in the first days of the new year.
2,600 plus U.S. flights and 4,400 plus worldwide were grounded Sunday (Jan. 2), as per tracking service FlightAware.
That followed Saturday’s mass cancellations of more than 2,700 U.S. flights and more than 4,700 worldwide.
A winter storm that hit the Midwest on Saturday made Chicago the worst place in the country for travellers throughout the weekend. About a quarter of all flights at O’Hare Airport were cancelled Sunday.
Denver’s airport also faced significant disruptions. Enos, who was flying on Frontier Airlines, didn’t learn that her connecting flight home to California was cancelled until she had already landed in Denver. Then it was a rush to find alternative flights and navigate through baggage claims packed with stranded and confused travellers, amid concerns about the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19.
Hawaiian Airlines cancel several flights between islands and across the Pacific due to staffing shortages.
Southwest Airlines said it was working to help customers affected by about 400 flights cancelled around the country Sunday, about 11% of its schedule. The Dallas-based airline anticipates even more operational challenges to come as the storm system pushes into the Eastern seaboard.
Delta Air Lines said Sunday it was issuing a travel waiver for planned flights this week out of mid-Atlantic airports in Baltimore and Washington in preparation for forecasted winter weather.
American Airlines said most of Sunday’s cancelled flights had been cancelled ahead of time to avoid last-minute disruptions at the airport.
SkyWest, a regional carrier that operates flights under the names American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express, grounded more than 500 flights Sunday, about 20% of its schedule, according to FlightAware.
Airlines have said they are taking steps to reduce cancellations caused by workers affected by the pandemic. United is offering to pay pilots triple or more of their usual wages for picking up open flights through most of January.
