"Delta teams have exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying," Delta said in a statement to NPR. "We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans."
Delta said it was also working to rebook travelers.
Locally, San Francisco International Airport saw 39 canceled flights Friday as of noon, and 25 flights on Thursday, according to FlightAware, a commercial flight-tracking company. Also at SFO, 56 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Friday.
While some travelers canceled holiday plans because of rising case numbers, many others kept to their vacations during some of the year’s busiest travel days. The Transportation Security Administration said it expects to screen nearly 30 million people from Dec. 20 through Jan. 3, compared with nearly 44 million during the last holiday season before the pandemic.
According to FlightAware, there are nearly 3,400 canceled flights on Friday and Saturday, with at least half of the cancellations by Chinese airlines. About 20% of affected flights — 745 — were to, from or within the U.S. This is a small fraction of global flights. FlightAware says it has tracked more than 120,000 arrivals in the past 24 hours.
Germany-based Lufthansa also canceled a dozen transatlantic flights citing a "massive rise" in sick leave, though the airline said it couldn't confirm whether that was related to COVID-19.
On Thursday, Airlines for America (A4A), a lobby group for airlines, wrote U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky asking for changes that could ease staffing shortages. The letter says current guidelines call for 10 days of isolation for flight crew. But A4A wants that to be shortened to 5 days from the onset of symptoms for those who experience a breakthrough infection.
"Current medical data suggests that Omicron is 25% to 50% more contagious, but likely less virulent and milder symptoms particularly among people who are fully vaccinated," the lobby group wrote, noting that the latest variant seems to have a shorter incubation period and infectious period for vaccinated individuals.
On Thursday the U.S. shortened COVID-19 isolation rules for health care workers only.
The cancellations come as coronavirus infections fueled by the new variant further squeeze staffing at hospitals, police departments, supermarkets and other critical operations struggling to maintain a full contingent of front-line workers.
To ease staffing shortages, countries including Spain and the U.K. have reduced the length of COVID-19 quarantines by letting people return to work sooner after testing positive or being exposed to the virus.
The holiday cancellations are just the latest challenge for an airline industry only beginning to recover from the Thanksgiving holiday — its busiest week since the pandemic began. To accommodate the surge in Christmas travelers, some airlines had offered employees incentive pay to work extra hours or not call in sick.
The Associated Press and KQED's Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez contributed to this report.
