Flight cancellations: Another 2,800 flights canceled Tuesday as travel disruption continues amid Omicron Gulf

Airlines worldwide have canceled more than 6,000 flights on Christmas Eve, Christmas and the day after Christmas. In the United States, more than 1,200 flights were canceled and more than 5,000 delayed on Sunday alone because staff and crew called in sick.

Air traffic slowed down on Saturday due to flight cancellations as more than 1.53 million people passed through security checks on Saturday.

“The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people running our operation,” said a United memo obtained by CNN.

“We apologize to our customers for the delay in their vacation travel plans,” Delta said in a statement. “Delta people are working hard to get them to where they need to be on the next available flight as quickly and safely as possible.”

International flights

European airlines are also dealing with a small number of cancellations amid record numbers of Covid-19 cases in several European countries.

German airline Lufthansa said it will cancel 10% of its winter flight schedule as the pandemic continues to hit the airline industry.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung last week, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said the airline will have to cancel 33,000 flights from mid-January to February 2022, or 10% of the group’s winter flight schedule, due to “a sharp drop in bookings”. .

Spohr’s comments were confirmed to CNN by Lufthansa’s press service.

— Pete Muntean, Arnaud Siad and Ramishah Maruf of CNN contributed to this report