As airline staff and crews called in sick and other factors contributed to airline problems, thousands of flights were cancelled during the Christmas weekend. Both domestic and global airlines were impacted by these massive cancellations. Based on the latest information supplied by FlightAware, approximately, 5700 flights were cancelled on Christmas eve And, the numbers that were reported included 1700 flights that were cancelled in the United States alone.
As millions of people still prepared to make travel arrangements, in spite of the rise in the Omicron variant, the news that they receive were sent in alert from by United Airlines and others that were experiencing these unprecedented problems. According to numerous news resources, these cancellations were due to a wide range of factors, including the domino effect that these disruptions had on the operation and crews as a whole.
To address customer concerns and also lessen the impact that these flight cancellations had on the impacted United Airlines customers, there were advance notifications out to keep people from coming to the airport. These notifications were also sent out to apologize for the disruptions in their travel, and to keep them up-to-date with flight changes as they were made. Customers could also keep in contact with their airlines to see about the possibilities of rebooking flights as soon as flights were made available.
Also, according to CNN, they obtained a memo from United Airlines that addressed these ongoing problems during the Christmas Eve weekend. The information supplied said that the spike in Omicron cases has had a direct impact on their flight crews and the staff.
Other airlines reported problems about their cancellations due to multiple issues and the number of flight cancellations that they were reporting. Starting with the following cancellations, by airline:
United Airlines cancelled 201 flights on Friday (approximately 10%) of the total scheduled, and 238 flights on Saturday (approximately 12%) of total scheduled
Delta Airlines cancelled 173 fights on Friday
Jetblue (JBLU) cancelled approximately 7% (80 flights) of their totaled schedule on Christmas eve
Alaskan Airlines cancelled 17 flights on Thursday but expected more by Christmas Eve
China Eastern cancelled about 22% (total of 474 flights) of their operation
Air China and Andy Rose respectively, cancelled 190 flights (15% of schedule) and dozens of flights
