As the Omicron variant spreads across the nations, its effect can be seen on the airlines as well. Recently airlines canceled at least 2,400 flights across the nations, out of which 900 were in the U.S.
Flight Cancellation On Rise As Crew Being Infected By Omicron
The data shows that 12 percent of JetBlue, 6 percent of the Delta, 5 percent of United Airlines, 1 percent of SouthWest airlines & 2 percent of American Airlines flights were canceled on weekends.
These flight cancellations are not due to harsh weather, overcast, or any other issues, as many airlines addressed, the new omicron variant is the prime reason. But a few, like, southwest airlines called harsh weather their prime reason for cancellations; according to their spokesperson Dan Lands, they are not having any problems related to the ongoing omicron variant.
Based on some reliable reports, many people were resuming their air travel after a long time, and due to the vacation season, airlines were expecting a high number of traveling, but they had to cancel more than 2300 flights in the U.S on weekends. But these flights cancellations just show a slight percentage of flights that were scheduled.
According to the Times report, presently in the U.S., the daily reported incoming corona cases are exceedingly over 2 lakhs, out of which 70 percent are attributable to the omicron variant. As each day passes, the increase in the number of cases is elevating.
According to the United States, transportation security administration travel has recoiled this year as more than two million individuals going through screening checkpoints per day throughout the last week. This is much higher than the numbers the U.S. had during the last two years when corona knocked over the world.
The rapid deployment of a new version Omicron variant in the United States brought daily new cases of Covid19 to a high rise record.
As of Monday, a whopping number of new cases & out of those 2 percent new deaths, were outlined all over the U.S. That added nearly one million new cases and more than 10,000 new deaths last week.
This is the country’s highest one-day rise in cases since the pandemic began due to the ongoing festive season and fast-spreading variant, Omicron said an expert.
The weekly average daily increase in cases hit over 200 thousand as of Sunday, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is the highest value since January 18.
These increasing cases raise a need for vaccination as Dr. Anthony Fauci discussed the possibility of requesting vaccinations for travelers. He said that vaccination should be the priority of the US government right now and every citizen and this requirement will bound more people to get vaccinated. According to him, this matter should be taken really strictly by the government.
Although a large number of flights were canceled, the stock prices of airways had little to no impact as the downfall recorded on Monday was only less than a percent.
Nevertheless, the United States centers for disease control and prevention are being called on by an airline trade group to reduce the isolation period of their vaccinated employees from ten days to five days. Going against this, the flight attendant group requested that reduction in the isolation period should not be marked by airlines; rather, this is public health officials’ decision.
JetBlue spokesperson Derek Dombrowski told the Times that the CDC’s coordination would reduce at least some of the workload and entice airlines to help thousands of passengers to arise back from their vacations.
