Compounding the travel chaos in the United States, severe
weather in the country’s west is due to wreak havoc on roadways and other
routes there although it may well bring a white Christmas to northwest cities
Seattle and Portland.
According to Flightaware.com, more than 2,620 flights were
scrubbed around the globe on Saturday, including 929 originating from or headed
to US airports, with 6,000 delays as of 1930 GMT.
On Friday, there were around 2,400 cancellations and 11,000
delays, while Sunday cancellations have already approached 900.
Pilots, flight attendants and other employees have been calling
in sick or having to quarantine after exposure to Covid, forcing Lufthansa,
Delta, United Airlines, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and many other short-staffed
carriers to cancel flights during one of the year’s peak travel periods.
“Help @united flight cancelled again. I want to get home for
Christmas,” one exasperated traveler from the US state of Vermont tweeted to
the airline early Saturday.
Flightaware data showed United cancelled around 200 flights
each day Friday and Saturday, or 10 percent of those that were scheduled.
A scramble to reroute pilots and planes and reassign
employees was underway, but Omicron’s surge has upended business.
“The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a
direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” United
said in a statement Friday.
“As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights
and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport,”
the airline said.
Similarly, Delta scrapped 300 flights Saturday and was
already cancelling several dozen more Sunday, saying it has “exhausted all
options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and
crews to cover scheduled flying.”
“We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday
travel plans,” the company said.
The cancellations added to the pandemic frustration for many
people eager to reunite with their families over the holidays, after last
year’s Christmas was severely curtailed.
Chinese airlines accounted for the highest number of
cancellations, with China Eastern scrapping 1,000 flights, over 20 percent of
its flight plan, on Friday and Saturday and Air China also grounding about 20
percent of its scheduled departures over the period.
– ‘Treacherous’ snow conditions -According to estimates from
the American Automobile Association, more than 109 million Americans were
scheduled to travel by plane, train or automobile between December 23 and
January 2, a 34 percent increase over last year.
But most of those plans were made before the outbreak of
Omicron, which has become the dominant strain in the United States,
overwhelming some hospitals and healthcare workers.
The state of New York announced Friday that it recorded
44,431 new daily positive Covid tests, a record, while new cases surged
nationwide as well.
On the weather front, while unseasonably warm temperatures
were bathing eastern states, the National Weather Service announced winter
storm warnings including a deep freeze for significant parts of the west.
“Anomalously cold conditions and a barrage of Pacific
moisture results in prolonged periods of mountain snow and coastal/valley rain,
some of which may fall heavy at times,” the NWS said in an advisory.
An eye-popping two to four feet (61 to 122 centimeters) of
snow was forecast to fall this weekend, with higher accumulation in some spots,
in the northern and central Sierra mountains of California and Oregon.
Travel will be “treacherous to at times impossible” from the
Sierras to the central Rocky Mountains at the weekend due to whiteout snow
conditions, the NWS added.