Winter storms in the Midwest combined with surging coronavirus infections to drive more than 6,000 flight cancellations in the U.S. over the New Year’s weekend, one of the toughest recent streaks for travelers.
Around 2,200 flights for Sunday already have been scrubbed nationwide by late morning, according to aviation data tracker FlightAware, with a quarter of service from Chicago O’Hare International Airport canceled after a snowstorm passed through the region.
Airports in Denver, Detroit and the Northeast also had elevated cancellations as the winter weather combined with Covid-19-related staffing shortages affecting airlines and the air-traffic control system.
The problems were projected to ease over the next day, with around 300 flights canceled nationwide for Monday, according to FlightAware, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp.
Airlines already have canceled thousands of flights over the past week because of Covid-19-related staffing challenges, prompting some to proactively scrub services. The Federal Aviation Administration has warned of possible delays due to its own Covid-driven employee issues.
Over 1,100 Sunday flights nationwide already have been canceled, mainly around storm-hit hubs like Chicago.
Photo: Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press
The agency said constraints on aircraft movements were probable later Sunday at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, after the FAA on Saturday delayed arriving planes because of Covid-19 related staffing challenges.
Carriers such as JetBlue Airways Corp. that have heavy staff concentrations in the Covid-hit Northeast also continued to have high cancellation rates. JetBlue last week moved to trim its schedule through mid-January due to increasing numbers of crews calling in sick.
Even with elevated cancellations and rising Covid-19 case numbers, demand for airline travel stabilized last week around 18% below 2019 levels based on Transportation Security Administration data. About 1.62 million people were screened on Saturday, down 24% from two years ago, when New Year’s Day fell on a Wednesday.
The number of canceled flights over the past two weeks has surpassed those of the entire winter season in each of the past four years, according to FlightAware, whose tally included domestic flights and those into and out of the U.S.
Winter 2013 was the worst in recent years for cancellations, with nearly 10,000 scrubbed flights during the season, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Write to Doug Cameron at [email protected]
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