More than 4,000 flights cancelled globally with 11,000 delayed

Travel chaos has spilled into the new year with thousands more flights scrapped or delayed as virus cases surge in airline staff and bad weather hits.

Over 4,000 flights were cancelled around the world on Sunday, most of them in the United States, adding to the mass upending of holiday week travel plans caused by a surge in Omicron-driven coronavirus cases and winter weather.

The flights cancelled on Sunday included over 2,400 entering, departing from or within the US, according to tracking website FlightAware.com.

Globally, more than 11,200 flights were delayed, according to Reuters.

Passengers wait to check their bags at an American Airlines kiosk at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. Picture: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/AFP

Among the airlines with most scrapped flights were SkyWest and Southwest Airlines, with 510 and 419 cancellations respectively as of Sunday night, according to FlightAware.

JetBlue, Delta, American Airlines and United also halted scores of flights.

Thousands more flights were cancelled in the US over the hectic New Year’s period. Picture: AFP

The post-New Year’s continuing travel headache comes after at least 2,700 US flights were canceled Saturday — and a total of 14,000 flights were called off since Christmas Eve, according to the flight data.

To combat staff shortages, United has offered to pay pilots triple their normal wages for picking up open flights through mid-January while Southwest has also offered to increase the payment of workers.

The Federal Aviation Administration has warned of travel delays due in recent days due to infected FAA employees along with snowstorms and icy conditions in some parts of the country.“To maintain safety, traffic and volume at some facilities could be reduced, which might result in delays during busy periods,” it warned.

Travelers move through Delta Airlines check-in at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, as more than 2,000 flights have been cancelled during the New Year. Picture: AFP

It comes as a staggering 2.4 million Covid cases have been recorded in the US in the past week–breaking the previous record set a year ago, according to new data.

The latest figures — which are slightly higher than the two million recorded between December 26 and January 1, 2021 — comes amid the fast-paced spread of the highly-contagious Omicron variant, the data from Johns Hopkins University shows.

On Thursday, several states also set records for new cases, including Louisiana, where the 24-hour total of 12,467 new infections was more than a third above the 9,378 from the day before, Governor John Bel Edwards said, according to USA Today.

On a more positive side, the weekly death count isn’t approaching record levels, with 8,878 people succumbing to the illness in the past week – which may support early evidence that the surging variant causes less severe infections, despite it being more transmissible, the NY Post reports.

It comes as the world hit a record number of Covid infections in a seven-day period, with more than 935,000 cases detected on average each day between 22-28 December, according to an AFP tally.

Globally, airlines have cancelled thousands of flights over the holiday period as staff and crew call in sick. More than 6,000 flights on Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the day after Christmas were cancelled.

In the US, more than 1,200 flights were cancelled and more than 5,000 were delayed on Sunday alone. More than 3,000 flights were cancelled on Monday, with a similar amount stopped on Tuesday as well, according to FlightAware.

US carriers Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines were among those to cancel flights this week, with the two airlines collectively cancelling hundreds of flights on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Airlines struggling with the Omicron variant of Covid-19, have cancelled thousands of flights globally. Picture: Yuki Iwamura / AFP.

Delta had said it expected to cancel more than 250 of 4,133 scheduled flights on Tuesday alone, while Alaska cancelled 170 flights across its network and warned of more cancellations and delays throughout the week. Both airlines have blamed weather and the spread of the omicron variant for the disruptions, NBC reports.

Originally published as More than 4,000 flights cancelled globally with 11,000 delayed