Airlines Cancel Over 1,500 U.S. Flights on Christmas Weekend As Crews Become Infected With COVID

Hundreds of flights have been canceled over Christmas weekend due to a rash of covid infections among flight crews driven by the spread of the omicron variant.

What Happened: More than 4,200 flight cancellations were reported worldwide on Saturday. There have been 1,500 flight canceled in the US since Friday, including 300 disruptions on Sunday.

Delta Air Lines Inc DAL and United Airlines Holdings Inc UAL were among those forced to cancel flights on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day after crew members became infected with COVID.

“We’re at about 230 related to Omicron for today and so far have 50 loaded for tomorrow. We’re continuing to manage everything day by day and give customers as much notice as possible so they can change their plans if needed,” United said in a statement on Saturday.

Delta spokeswoman Kate Modolo issued a statement saying, "We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans. Delta people are working hard to get them to where they need to be as quickly and as safely as possible on the next available flight.''

American Airlines Group Inc AAL experienced similar challenges,"Our operation has been running smoothly, and unfortunately a number of COVID-related sick calls led us to make the difficult decision to precancel some flights scheduled for today," said a statement on Saturday.

"We proactively notified affected customers yesterday, and are working hard to rebook them quickly. We never want to disappoint our customers and apologize for any disruptions to their holiday travel plans,” the statement added.

There were a multitude of complaints from airline customers on Twitter:

There were also a variety of tweets celebrating the holiday season in spite of the challenges posed by omicron.

More than 90% of Delta employees and more than 96% of United’s U.S. staff are vaccinated, according to the airlines.

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