Weather and Illness Leads to Third Week of Airline Cancellations
Joe Cortez January 03, 2022
Image Source: Mathieu Marquer/Flickr
CBS News reports the airline network meltdowns are now into their third week, as a new wave of COVID-19 infections and weather concerns are wreaking havoc at airports across the country.
Airlines Report 5,500 Cancellations Between January 2-4, 2021
Problems getting passengers to their final destination began prior to the Christmas holiday weekend, one of the busiest travel periods of the year. With a shortage of pilots and flight crews calling off due to breakthrough infections attributed to the Omicron variant of COVID-19, all of the major carriers were forced to cancel flights through the New Year.
Two weeks later, the carriers have yet to catch up with their schedules. Data from FlightAware.com shows global airlines cancelled over 4,400 flights, with 2,708 of those affecting U.S. flyers. The day before, CBS News notes there were an additional 2,700 cancellations of U.S. flights.
As of 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, January 3, 2021, there were over 2,700 cancellations on flights within, into, or departing the United States. Southwest Airlines had the most cancellations with 602, alongside 674 delays. Regional carrier SkyWest reported 326 cancellations, while American Airlines and regional subsidiary PSA Airlines reported 301 cancellations combined.
To keep aircraft flying, the companies are getting creative with incentives to keep crews on the job. CNBC reports United Airlines reached an agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association to offer additional pay for pilots who want to cover additional open flights. Any aviators working an open trip through January 29, 2021 will get three-times their normal pay rate. Other airlines, including American, JetBlue and Southwest Airlines are also increasing compensation for flight crews.
Complicating staffing issues are major weather systems affecting major cities on the east coast. Washington, D.C. NBC affiliate WRC-TV reports a storm could leave up to 10 inches of snow in the area, contributing to additional delays in America’s capital.
The good news is that even with the pandemic conditions, January is typically one of the slowest months for the aviation industry. Analysts predict the airlines will be able to get back on track in the coming days.
Staffing Levels Continue to Haunt Airlines in Customer Recovery
With flyers returning to the skies, airlines are experiencing troubles in keeping workers on aircraft to keep operations normal. Even though all major carriers have committed to hiring in 2022, it didn’t stop the U.S. Senate Transportation Committee from questioning airline executives on their use of federal funds at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Open travel=superspreader event...this is a no-brainer to understand at this point even for the lay man.
Easiest way to have prevented the spread was to lock down all travel. Those that wanted to travel would have paid extraordinarily to do so, so there would have been no economic impact, and people would have been safer. This is what I believe the role of regulators should be--protect citizens as a whole when citizens as a whole are on a self-destructive path.
For anyone that thinks this is too extreme--go say that to the face of someone in the icu with covid...if your heart will let you. And if you're able to do that, you don't really deserve the freedom to harm others.
just lock down already.
at least that way everyone would have some certainty.
I'd rather know in advance a flight has been cancelled than to roll the dice by going to the airport 2h away.
sooner or later we'll end up locking down again anyway. Over 400k cases everyday in the US, what omicron lacks in lethality it makes up in transmissibility.
Whoops!
So much for the vaccination mandates by the Federal Government to contain Covid.
FAIL.