Thousands of flights cancelled due to the combined impacts of Omicron and the winter weather 

Due to the intense winter weather and the surge in COVID-19 cases, flights are getting cancelled left and right. 

Various airlines in the US experienced disruptions due to storms that hit multiple parts of the country including the Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest, and Southwest regions. Just after Christmas, a storm hit Seattle, resulting in the city seeing more snow in a single day than it ever did for the entire year of 2020. Meanwhile, snow rolled through the hubs of Chicago, Denver, and Baltimore in the first four days of 2022, further disrupting the airline industry. 

Aside from the winter weather, there is also the added threat of the pandemic.

In the recent weeks, we have seen a rise in the total number of COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant’s rapid spread. The variant may be less severe than the other variants, but it’s by far the most contagious. 

The demand for holiday travel despite the winter weather combined with staffing shortages due to the surge of coronavirus cases steers one of the worst air travel disruptions since the outset of the pandemic when 56,000 flights were cancelled in a single week. Worse, the daily flight cancellations do not show signs of decline at present.

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On December 21, 2021, Delta Air Lines executive Ed Bastian asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to cut the isolation time after employees tested positive for the coronavirus. Delta was one of the aviation companies that cancelled flights on the succeeding days from Christmas Eve to Christmas day, along with United and JetBlue Airways due to rising cases of coronavirus among their workforces.

At first glance, the trouble with air flights seemed like a pandemic-related challenge, but quickly amplified to multitiered uncertainties after reports of the Omicron variant surge hit the news. It did not help that on the very next day after Christmas, a snowstorm shocked Seattle, crippling yet again the operations of another major American airline, Alaska Airlines.

The Omicron outbreak together with the flu season further affected the operations of other airlines, as the familiar headache is feared to be a case of the surging variant. Pilots, flight attendants, and other personnel started calling in sick or isolating themselves as they feared exposure to the coronavirus. The situation was particularly bad in Lufthansa, Delta, and United Airlines. Ten percent of United’s scheduled flights were cancelled during the peak period.

Multiple flights on other airlines were also cancelled on Christmas day―37 flights in Schiphol airport, 13 from the EasyJet company, and 10 in KLM airlines. Meanwhile, an estimated 4,700 other flights worldwide were cancelled, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

By the end of the first week of January, the tally of cancellations had already reached 28,000. 

For Southwest Airlines, the disruptions had been fairly minimal until the first four days of 2022, when it had to cancel 2,000 flights. Alaska Airlines, on the other hand, announced that 10% of the flight schedule would be cut as the airline is still struggling in the aftermath of the December snowstorm. Meanwhile, SkyWest Airlines has already canceled over 4,000 of its flights.

Both passengers and airline companies suffered the effects that followed these travel disruptions.

In addition to either delayed or cancelled flights, passengers had to deal with lost luggages that took almost two weeks to be returned to them. Some even had to go to the airport to claim their bags because airlines were too overwhelmed to accommodate them.

Airlines also struggled to cope with the effects of the pandemic, quarantined employees, and bad weather. At the beginning of the pandemic, about 50,000 airline employees left the industry through retirements or voluntary buyouts. When the demand for travel ramped up last spring, airlines tried to bring back workers. However, recruiting was more difficult due to a tight job market. With this staff shortage, airlines had to cut their schedules and cancel smaller regional flights to allocate staff and resources to long-haul flights. 

FlightAware shows that while the aggressive surge of the Omicron variant mostly contributed to the cancellation of flights, bad weather also shared part of the blame. That’s why you must remain vigilant with the last-minute changes in schedule during air travel. 

If you are affected by a schedule change, here’s some strategies for you to mitigate the impacts.

Safe travels!