Posted on 12/26/2021 11:14:08 AM PST by SeekAndFind
As the holiday weekend draws to a close, it has been anything but merry for tens of thousands of stranded airline passengers who had their flight canceled due to a flare-up of the omicron variant that resulted in staffing shortages of pilots and crew for several major airline carriers. Data tracker FlightAware.com shows US flight cancellations exceeded 2,400 in just the past 48 hours.
The situation has yet to ease on Sunday as total cancellations within, into, or out of the U.S. topped 754 flights as of 1300 ET. On Christmas day, U.S. cancellations topped nearly 1,000.
Henry Harteveldt, president of travel consulting firm Atmosphere Research Group, told Bloomberg that air travel disruptions might extend into the next week.
Flight cancellations are a "concern at a time when people are traveling to spend time with family and friends for the holidays," Harteveldt said. "No airline wants to be viewed as the Grinch who stole Christmas."
In our reporting of the travel chaos that began on Christmas Eve and continued through the weekend (read: here & here), we noted Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. were the carriers most affected by labor shortages. Both airlines acknowledged cancellations were due to an outbreak of the omicron variant.
Flight cancellations due to staffing shortages have been nothing new for airlines.
Many travelers who had their flights canceled or delayed vented on social media this weekend.
Let's hope Harteveldt isn't right that travel disruptions could persist through New Year's Eve because that would officially make this holiday travel season one of the worst in years.
One of N reasons (where N is a large number) why the airlines can shove it up their collective Obamaholes.
If one gets the rare privilege of actually getting onto the flight when scheduled, they can then suck their mask air and perhaps be seated by a Karen (who deserves a lingering death).
Lol, who flies with their mandates. Answer, except biz travelers, no one you would want to be cozied up with.
The airlines have screwed themselves with their mandates and firings.
AOC said take the train to Europe. All is good.
Darn. I was hoping to get assaulted by a screeching harridan. Maybe I can get lucky at a bus station instead.
If I can’t drive there, I don’t need to go there.
Those job mandate working out well...
Funny, Southwest with no problems...
That means they have only fully jabbed and masked crew, how do they get the Coof? I thought jabs and masks worked?
Yet another good reason to have a private pilot’s license.
Covax has really taken out a lot of pilots.
The crew shortages will only be getting worse. Trust me on that one.
As some hospitals have walked back their vax requirements (as a last-ditch effort to prevent closing altogether), maybe the airlines would do the same.
Airlines are screwed because even if the scamdemic ended tomorrow, too many Americans have no funds for recreational air travel. The Bidenflation has diverted those funds to food, heating oil, etc..
Just vote Biden out and end the nightmare.
i hope every one of them remembers this next November AND in 2024
How much of the calling in sick is staff saying stuff it to their overbearing bosses. ‘Make them suffer’. I doubt the shortages are all as the msm ‘journalist’ makes it out to be.
That is what they get for demanding vaccinations of workers.
It took one year to crush our country.
ROTFLMAO!!! More media BS...vaccine mandates, not 'omicron' (a common cold). How gullible ARE people?
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