One of the busiest travel weeks of the year has been damaged by weather and the spread of COVID-19, leaving thousands of travelers prevented from departing following the Christmas holiday. Flight Aware, a website that tracks airline cancellations and delays worldwide, reports that a total of 1,500 flights were canceled in the U.S. on Sunday. On Monday, as of 8:30 a.m. , nearly 800 cancellations had already been reported.
According to Flight Aware, United and Alaska Airlines reported the most cancellations and delays on Monday morning. Alaska Airlines alone canceled 93 flights, representing 13% of all its air traffic for Monday. The cancellations continue a trend that began last week when several airlines confirmed staffing shortages caused by COVID-19 outbreaks.
A news reporter obtained an internal memo from United last Thursday that noted that the rise of the more contagious Omicron(奥密克戎) variant had a “direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation.” In a statement, Delta Airlines said that Omicron staffing shortages also factored into its decision to cancel 344 flights on Christmas Day. NBC News reports that JetBlue and Alaska Airlines have also cited staffing shortages and COVID-19 outbreaks as reasons for canceling flights.
In addition, a large part of the western U.S. is also dealing with a winter storm, further complicating travel plans. A Christmas snowstorm swept across northern California up to Washington, further causing delays for airlines with western hubs(枢纽), like Alaska Airlines. But the snow isn’t just impacting air travel. According to The Associated Press, the storm was to blame for a 20-car pileup(连环相撞) on a highway near Reno, Nevada.
本时文内容由奇速英语国际教育研究院原创编写，未经书面授权，禁止复制和任何商业用途，版权所有，侵权必究！（作者投稿及时文阅读定制请联系微信：18980471698）
13980503458
13980503458
admin@qisuen.cn
