At 4 p.m. on Saturday, Flight Aware reported 2,581 cancellations due to covid positive airline employees and bad weather throughout the country.
More than 12,000 flights have been canceled this week due to bad weather, bringing the total number of cancellations to more than 12,000.
On Saturday, more planes were canceled than any other day this week combined.
Since Christmas Eve, airlines have been canceling hundreds of flights daily; but, on Saturday, the number of cancellations reached a record high. There were 1,625 flight cancellations on New Year’s Eve.
Passengers were warned by the FAA on Friday that flight disruptions would continue as the agency continues to deal with personnel shortages.
More than 400 flights have been canceled by Southwest Airlines on New Year’s Day. The Chicago Midway hub of the firm will be closed on Saturday at 1 p.m. CST due to bad weather.
Southwest said to ABC News in a statement, “Our Planners proactively suspended operations at both Chicago airports as of 1 pm CST today (we operate well more than 200 departures a day at Chicago Midway) anticipating the gusty winds and blowing snow that decades of our history operating in this airport show us will slow down the airspace and also make deicing and getting aircraft back into the air very challenging.”
Southwest Airlines said, “No doubt, for passengers of all air carriers, Chicago travel will be tough today.”
According to Delta Airlines, the airline has canceled a total of 196 flights on Saturday.
The airline said on the website, “A combination of issues, including but not limited to inclement weather in some areas of the country and the impact of the omicron variant, are driving cancellations.”
“The winter storm in Chicago is having an impact on our operations, accounting for a significant number of our mainline cancellations,” American Airlines told ABC News. “It’s affecting both flights in and out of Chicago and other flight sequences for our crew. The number of COVID-related sick calls is consistent with what we have seen over the past few days. The vast majority of impacted flights were precanceled yesterday so we could proactively notify and accommodate our customers and avoid last-minute disruptions at the airport .”
It was also stated by American Airlines that it had “issued a travel notice to allow all customers whose travel plans are impacted by the Chicago storm to rebook without change fees. We apologize to our customers whose travel plans have been affected, and want to thank our team who have worked tirelessly to help us care for our customers.”
According to Skywest Airlines, it had canceled 465 flights on Saturday.
In a statement to ABC News, Skywest Airlines said, “We continue to experience the impact of weather and the omicron variant across several SkyWest hubs, and have proactively canceled a significant number of flights due to the weekend’s weather in Chicago, Denver, and Detroit.”
Skywest also stated that its teams “are working nonstop to minimize impact to customers and crew. Customers should check their carrier’s website or app for the latest information about their flight.”
