Bad Weather, Staff Shortages and Omicron Extend Air Travel Disruptions

Flight cancellations that disrupted holiday travel stretched into Monday with thousands of U.S. flights canceled and delayed during one of the year’s busiest travel periods, due to airline crews being out sick with COVID-19 and worsening weather conditions.

Staffing shortages also added to the chaos. In 2020, when air travel collapsed, airlines encouraged workers to quit, and then struggled to make up ground this year when travel rebounded faster than almost anyone expected.

Add the arrival of the omicron variant, and thousands of flights were canceled over four days. According to FlightAware, which tracks flight cancellations, airlines have canceled more than 4,000 flights to, from or inside the U.S. since Friday, with over 1,000 U.S. cancellations on Monday.

Bay Area airports have been affected. At San Francisco International, 36 departing flights and 39 arriving flights were canceled Monday as of 6 p.m. At Oakland International Airport, the number of cancellations was much smaller — 10 departing and 9 incoming — but dozens more have been delayed.

Delta, United, JetBlue and American all have said the coronavirus was causing staffing problems, and European and Australian airlines also canceled holiday-season flights because staff were infected, but weather and other factors played a role as well.

Winter weather in the Pacific Northwest led to nearly 250 flight cancellations to or from Seattle on Sunday, said Alaska Airlines, and the airline expects more than 100 flight cancellations Monday. But it said that crew calling in sick because of COVID-19 is no longer a factor.

United said it canceled 115 flights Monday, out of more than 4,000 scheduled, due to crews out with COVID-19. SkyWest, a regional airline based in Utah, said it had more cancellations than normal during the weekend and on Monday, after bad weather affected several of its hubs and many crew members were out with COVID-19.

Airlines have called on the Biden administration to shorten the guidelines for the isolation period for vaccinated workers who get COVID-19, in order to ease staffing shortages. The union for flight attendants has pushed back against that, saying the isolation period should remain 10 days.

Air travel dropped steeply in 2020 and has recovered throughout 2021. Transportation Security Administration data shows the number of passengers screened at TSA checkpoints during the holiday season up significantly from last year — on some days double the number of fliers or even more — but generally still short of 2019 levels.

The U.S. government requires vaccinations of foreigners coming to the U.S. as well as a negative COVID test of both U.S. citizens and foreigners flying into the country. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said on Monday that the U.S. should also “seriously” consider a vaccination mandate for domestic travel as another way to push people to get vaccinated.

The administration has at times considered a domestic vaccination requirement, or one requiring either vaccination or proof of a negative test. Such a requirement could face legal challenges.

This post includes reporting from KQED's Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí.