Cancellations of holiday flights are increasing due to Covid-19 manning problems and bad weather
Data from the website FlightAware shows that more than 4,731 flights were canceled globally on Saturday – by far the largest day of cancellations since the meltdown began on Christmas Eve. At least 2,739 of the cancellations were within, in or out of the United States.
Sunday cancellations in the US already count 2207 flights, FlightAware showed, and global cancellations reached 3755. Sunday is generally the busiest travel day of the week, and this Sunday is probably a heavy travel day when the Christmas holidays and New Year’s week end. The Transportation Security Administration said Thursday that it expects to screen 10 million people from Friday to Monday.
Southwest, JetBlue, Delta and American Airlines each have over 1[ads1]00 canceled flights on Sunday, with Southwest leading the group with 264. JetBlue canceled 16% of its operations, according to FlightAware data.
Including Sunday, airlines have canceled more than 14,000 flights in the last 10 days, including Christmas Eve, according to a CNN census of FlightAware data.
The problem is likely to continue into next week because it takes time for airlines to recover from the weather problems alone. More than 310 US flights have already been canceled for Monday.
The cancellations were across the board for US carriers. The big four on Saturday: Southwest canceled 13%, Delta 10%, American and United 8%.
One a quarter of flights departing from Chicago O’Hare on Sunday were canceled, after 44% of flights from O’Hare were canceled on Saturday and 54% of flights were canceled from Midway.
Allegiant canceled 27% of Saturday’s schedule, or 64 flights. Spokeswoman Hilarie Gray acknowledged weather and Covid-19 staffing issues in a message to CNN.
“As you may have noticed, we continue to have an unusual number of cancellations this week – some due to severe weather, and some due to other factors – including the type of unforeseen covid staff that other airlines have experienced and partners in places where we are flying.
“The ongoing impact of these factors is not something we can predict, but we expect more delays and cancellations this week, unfortunately. Of course when an unforeseen disruption occurs, customer service alerts the affected passengers directly and forwards options to be resumed. – accommodated on another flight, receive a refund, credit or other compensation. “
A perfect storm
Now a new challenge is adding to the travelers’ problems: a big storm is shooting over the Rockies and the Midwest, bringing ice and heavy snow. Nearly a quarter of flights at Kansas City International Airport were canceled on Saturday. In Detroit, the airlines canceled one of five flights.
CNN Business’ Chris Isidore and Ramishah Maruf contributed to this story.