More than 3,600 flights were canceled worldwide on Sunday, as the Omicron variant spread rapidly and many airline employees were in quarantine.
More than half of canceled flights have their first or last stop in the USA. In the country, many flights were canceled during the holiday season starting with Christmas due to the lack of employees due to weather conditions Omicron.
According to information compiled from the USA by the air traffic tracking website FlightAware.com, 2,100 canceled flights were either in the USA, either the departure or the destination, or both. In addition, 6,400 flights across the country were delayed.
The airlines with the most cancellations were SkyWest and SouthWest, both of which had 400 flights. The holiday period, which starts on December 24 and ends with the first day of the new year on January 1, is considered as the period in which the most flights are made and the airline companies make the most profit.
Pilots and other cabin crew members, who make use of this period by working overtime every year, blame passengers who do not comply with the rules and airport officials who make concessions when this is not possible this year.
However, as the Omicron variant increases infectiousness at a great rate, many pilots and flight crews are in quarantine because they were detected or in contact with Covid-19. For this reason, such a high number of flights were cancelled.
Due to the latest developments, many airline companies and travel agencies in the USA have restricted their services.
Some tourism companies in the country also announced that they will return to work completely from the office by January. These plans were also put on hold “indefinitely” as the number of cases spread so rapidly. Employees will continue to work from home, as they have for a year and a half.
Employees who have been on paid leave for 18 months are struggling with the financial situation of the companies, while the employees of the airline companies, who are paid overtime per day and cannot earn money for months, are also in a difficult situation.
On Saturday, 346,869 cases of coronavirus were detected in the USA.