Travel misery continues into the new year with more than 2,000 flights are already cancelled for Monday due to bad weather and airline sta...
Travel misery continues into the new year with more than 2,000 flights are already cancelled for Monday due to bad weather and airline staffing woes sparked by a surge in Covid cases.
And things are only likely to get worse as the first major winter storm of the season is predicted to blow through the East Coast Monday.
As of early Monday morning, 2,133 domestic flights or international ones starting or finishing in the United States had been canceled. Another 2,003 US flights were delayed.
On Sunday, Americans returning home from holiday travel had to battle another day of airport chaos Sunday, with 2,462 flights cancelled. Additionally, another 5,489 US flights were delayed.
The previous day, there were 2,749 cancelled flights, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware.
As Americans return from their holidays, it will be a slightly less hectic day in the friendly skies on Monday, but still more than 2,600 flights cancelled due to bad weather or airline staffing woes sparked by a surge in Covid cases. Additionally, another 270 US flights were delayed
SkyWest, which operates more than 200 American cities on behalf of Delta, United, American Eagle and Alaska, cancelled 196 flights on Monday
Many areas of the northeast and mid-Atlantic are preparing for their first significant winter storms of the year.
New New York City Mayor Eric Adams deployed the salt trucks Sunday night ahead of what he believed would be 1-to-3 inches of snow during the morning commute and said a travel advisory would be in effect.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday in five counties, advising residents to avoid travel.
Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington DC declared a snow emergency for the nation's capital from midnight until 7pm Monday.
In Philadelphia, a winter weather advisory has been issued.
Southwest was the hardest hit of all US airlines on Monday with 481 cancellations and another 477 delayed by late morning.
SkyWest, which operates more than 200 American cities on behalf of Delta, United, American Eagle and Alaska, cancelled 271.
Other popular airlines had far fewer cancellations: Delta called off 122, JetBlue cancelled 136, American Airlines 162 and Spirit 51.
Regarding airports, Reagan National Airport in Virginia had the most cancelled flights with 169, while Baltimore/Washington International in Maryland second with 93.
Denver International and Newark Airport rounded out the top five American airports experiencing the most cancellations with 84 and 72 called-off flights, respectively.
Meanwhile, another DC-area airport - Washington Dulles International - cancelled 69, following in the footsteps of Reagan and Baltimore/Washington as the city declared a nearly day-long snow emergency on Monday.
Much of the mid-Atlantic could see it's first significant winter weather on Monday morning during the commute
The cancellations resulted in intense frustration for many travelers, who took to Twitter to express their woes about cancelled flights and connections.
One user tweeted: 'My flight got cancelled today, should I take it as a sign to just stay in San Diego and abandon my former life for 2022?'
Another wrote: 'One more cancelled flight and imma take a flight from the roof of this b****.'
On Saturday, many cancellations were caused by poor weather - much of it linked to Winter Storm Frida, which hit the southern Great Plains and the Great Lakes regions with heavy snowfall, ice and freezing temperatures.
The storm forced Southwest to cancel 490 flights after they issued a statement ahead of the weekend stating services would be interrupted in Denver, Chicago and Milwaukee.
Airports in Chicago - a major transit hub - were the most affected Saturday, but by Sunday the airports in Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Houston and Newark were also hard hit.
Around the world, air traffic has suffered snarls since Christmas because of airline staffing issues linked to the spread of the highly contagious Covid-19 Omicron variant.
Many pilots and flight attendants have called in sick after testing positive for the virus or being forced to quarantine due to contact with someone who has the virus.
This has left carriers with staffing shortages and forced them to delay or cancel flights.
Travelers took to Twitter to express their woes about cancelled flights and connections
As of Sunday, the US reached a seven-day average of 402,998 cases. Dr Anthony Fauci also warned today that Americans may soon need to produce a negative Covid test to leave quarantine after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cut the isolation period from 10 days to five for the asymptomatic.
The CDC decision to slash the quarantine period in half for patients without symptoms came last Tuesday in an effort to prevent another devastating blow to the economy amid the spike in workers testing positive, sparking fears of lengthy shutdowns that could further decimate the economy.
Fauci’s comments come as South Africa, where the Omicron virus was first reported, passed the peak of its coronavirus cases caused by the variant, prompting scientists to project that the US will hit its own Omicron peak by early January.
The US is predicted to reach a peak in cases by January 9, which would see somewhere between 2.5million to 5.4million new cases per week, according to researchers from Columbia University, The New York Times reported.
'We are realizing right now monitoring the data that the peak is going to come much faster. My guess is it will happen before mid-January,’ Ali Mokdad, a public health researcher at the University of Washington, also told the news outlet.
The latest travel chaos carried echoes of a frustrating Christmas weekend, when around 7,500 flights around the world were scrapped.
One traveler, Eric Crawford, described his frustration at trying to call a Delta Airline agent to reschedule.And rebooking canceled flights has been a major challenge for many.
'An estimated wait time of 22+ hours to speak with a rep about a cancelled flight,' he said on Twitter, adding that it's 'not the best look for starting 2022'.
Kowshick Boddu offered his account of the chaos with Alaska Air on the social media site: 'We were supposed to fly out from Fairbanks to San Jose on Dec 30, but our flights got rescheduled to today which is eventually cancelled again??? Long customer call wait hours, no response and flights not been rebooked? Need help!!'
Dr Anthony Fauci also warned today that Americans may soon need to produce a negative Covid test to leave quarantine after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cut the isolation period from 10 days to five for the asymptomatic (Pictured: People waited on line at a pop-up testing site in Houston, Texas, on December 30)
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