Operational problems in airlines come as millions of people still fly despite the increase in coronavirus cases. The TSA said it screened 2.19 million people at airports across the country on Thursday, the highest figure since the holiday travel surge began a week ago.
“The national peak of Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operations,” said a note from United obtained by CNN.
United said it is “giving affected customers advance notice of their arrival at the airport,” according to a company statement. “We’re sorry for the disruption and are working hard to book as many people as possible and get them off for the holidays.”
Delta said the cancellations were due to several issues, including the Omicron variant.
“We apologize to our customers for the delay in their vacation travel plans,” Delta said in a statement. “The folks at Delta are working hard to get them to where they need to be as quickly and safely as possible on the next available flight.”
Alaska Airlines said in a statement that it had canceled 17 flights because of Omicron on Thursday and that further cancellations were possible on Christmas Eve. The airline canceled 11 flights on Friday.
Thousands of international flights canceled
China Eastern has canceled 474 flights, or 22% of its operations, according to FlightAware. Likewise, Air China canceled around 190 flights, or 15% of its schedule.
Air India, Shenzhen Airlines, Lion Air and Wings Air have also canceled dozens of flights.
Andy Rose, Sharif Paget, Ramishah Maruf, Eric Levenson and Carma Hassan contributed to this report
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