COVID Surge, Weather Scrubs 7,000 Flights Worldwide This Weekend, Including 78 at Boston’s Logan International Airport
Airlines canceled about 7,000 flights worldwide and delayed more than 19,000 this weekend, including almost 80 cancellations at Boston’s Logan International Airport as icy weather compounded ongoing manpower troubles during a holiday season COVID-19 surge.
The online tracker FlightAware reported 1,322 cancellations and 4,800 delays across the U.S. on Saturday, followed by 1,257 cancellations and 2,800 delays Sunday.
Multiple airlines have reported outbreaks of the omicron variant among flight crews. The pandemic and inclement weather combined to ground more than 9,000 flights worldwide last weekend, including 5,300 in the U.S. and 200 at Logan.
As of 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Logan had reported at least 78 cancellations over the weekend, as well as almost 300 delays, according to FlightAware. Seven cancellations are already scheduled for Monday at Logan.
Meanwhile, at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, there were 17 cancellations and 40 delays this weekend, FlightAware reported, with just one cancellation set for Monday.
The disruption to winter travel has continued over several weekends in a row, and many airlines have planned cancellations and schedule changes in advance to help customers adjust. JetBlue announced in December that it would cancel more than 1,000 flights over the first couple weeks in January.
“Unfortunately, a series of winter weather systems throughout the U.S. coupled with the rapidly spreading omicron variant put extraordinary pressure on our operation, our employees and customers like you,” Allison Ausband, Delta’s executive vice president and chief customer experience officer, said in a statement on Wednesday. “It has been one of the most difficult operational environments we’ve ever faced, and it forced us to cancel hundreds of flights as a result.”
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