Just a week after airlines cancelled more than 500 flights on Christmas Day after a surge in omicron infections led to staff shortages—travelers were once again left frustrated this weekend, as thousands of flights were canceled.
According to the flight tracking service FlightAware, more than 2,500 U.S. flights and about 4,300 worldwide were cancelled on New Year’s Day due to severe weather and omicron cases among staff. The news arrives just a day after 1,625 flights were dropped on New Year’s Eve.
Southwest, which had the most cancellations with 473 scrapped flights, suspended operations at its Chicago Midway hub on Saturday due to inclement weather. Skywest had 472 cancelled flights.
“Our Planners proactively suspended operations at both Chicago airports as of 1pm CST today (we operate well more than 200 departures a day at Chicago Midway) anticipating the gusty winds and blowing snow that decades of our history operating in this airport show us will slow down the airspace and also make deicing and getting aircraft back into the air very challenging,” Southwest told ABC News in a statement.
Meanwhile, nearly 210 American Airlines flights were canceled in addition to 205 Delta and 158 United flights. JetBlue had 118 cancelled flights and Spirit had 104.
“The winter storm in Chicago is having an impact on our operations, accounting for a significant number of our mainline cancellations,” American said in a news release. “It’s affecting both flights in and out of Chicago and other flight sequences for our crew. The number of COVID-related sick calls is consistent with what we have seen over the past few days. The vast majority of impacted flights were precanceled yesterday so we could proactively notify and accommodate our customers and avoid last-minute disruptions at the airport.”
