Flight Delays, Cancellations Strand Thousands of Travelers

Staffing issues, quarantines after COVID testing, and early retirements have the airlines short-staffed and passengers short-tempered.

Meg Godlewski

Monday, December 27, 2021 at 02:56 PM ET

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A plane approaches Seattle Tacoma International Airport in Seatac, Washington. [Credit: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

Thousands of airline flights are experiencing widespread cancellations and delays during the holiday season, primarily due to a combination of factors.
A major cause is reduced airline staffing, stemming from crew quarantines due to the Omicron variant and unreplaced early retirements from 2020, even as passenger travel returns to pre-pandemic levels.
Severe winter weather, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, is also significantly disrupting air travel schedules.
Airlines have appealed to the CDC to shorten the required quarantine period for infected staff to five days to help alleviate staffing shortages.

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Thousands of travelers are having their holiday plans disrupted owing to a combination of reduced staffing blamed on the surge of the omicron variant of COVID-19 and wintery weather resulting in the cancellation and delay of thousands of airline flights across the country.

According to FlightAware, between December 24 and 10 a.m. PT on Monday, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, and United Airlines were forced to cancel or delay more than 2,466 flights.