Cancellation chaos continues in the United States. By late afternoon on Thursday (New York time), airlines had canceled nearly 700 flights within, in, or out of the United States across the day. The airlines are blaming a combination of omicron and bad weather.
JetBlue & United Airlines are leading the cancellation charge today
According to FlightAware's airline database, United Airlines was leading the cancellation charge on Thursday, with 169 flights canceled so far. Close behind was JetBlue, with 143 flights canceled so far. In their wake are Skywest with 120 cancellations across Thursday thus far, CommutAir with 43 cancellations, and Allegiant with 42 cancellations.
On Thursday, Reuters is reporting JetBlue is pulling 1,280 flights from its schedules through to January 13. The airline attributes this to the high level of omicron among its employees.
"We expect the number of COVID cases in the northeast, where most of our crew members are based, to continue to surge for the next week or two," reads a JetBlue statement. "This means there is a high likelihood of additional cancellations until case counts start to come down."
The US is now reporting over 250,000 new coronavirus cases every day - higher than the daily numbers reported last winter.
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Cancellations attributed to omicron & bad weather
On Thursday, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and American Airlines have all avoided headline cancellation rates. However, Delta canceled 130 flights across its network on Wednesday. All up, airlines will cancel thousands of flights between Christmas and mid-January in the United States.
United Airlines and Allegiant Airlines attribute their high cancellation figures to omicron-related staff shortages. Not helping matters this week were unusually high snowfall levels and low temperatures across much of western United States. The bad weather impacted flights at airports like Seattle-Tacoma, with knock-on effects across the country.
As flights get canceled, irate passengers are taking social media to vent their frustration. "What's up with these last-minute flight cancelations?" one bumped passenger fumed online.
"So my flight was canceled this morning. Alaska told me to rebook on their website. When I tried to do that, the website told me to call. I've been trying to get in touch for 11 hours," says another passenger.
Alaska Airlines is experiencing cancellations they attribute to bad weather in the Pacific northwest. Another passenger says their hub at Seattle-Tacoma is a "mess" with delays, cancellations, and frustrated passengers.
Cancellations continue into the weekend
So far on Thursday, Seattle-Tacoma has had 39 cancellations or 8% of all flights scheduled. Busier Newark and Denver Airports (both big United hubs) are seeing higher levels of cancellations. Newark has 53 flights canceled so far on Thursday, while Denver has 80 flights canceled. Both numbers represent about 10% of all flights scheduled at the airports on Thursday.
It looks like the cancellations will continue into Friday. Already Skywest has axed 116 flights. JetBlue has canceled 90 flights, United Airlines has canceled 74 flights, and Air Wisconsin has canceled 66 flights.
Chicago O'Hare is the frontrunner for the airport most impacted by flight cancellations on Friday. So far, 90 flights (14% of all scheduled services that day) are scratched from the O'Hare arrival and departures boards.
In total, US airlines have already canceled over 500 flights across Friday and more than 100 on Saturday. Those numbers will increase over the course of each day.