United and Delta cancel more than 200 Christmas Eve flights

United Airlines and Delta Air Lines announced on Thursday that they had canceled dozens of flights scheduled to operate each on Christmas Eve, as the outbreak of the new coronavirus pandemic reduced their available staff.

Chicago-based Illinois canceled 120 flights scheduled for today, while Atlanta, Georgia-based Delta canceled some 90 flights. Both said they were trying to contact with passengers who had booked tickets to them, so as not to go in vain to the airports or be excluded.

“The rapid increase in Omicron (nationwide) cases has had a direct impact on our crews and ground staff. As a result, we have unfortunately had to cancel some of our flights and notify our affected customers in advance before they arrive. at the airport, “the UA said.

Delta said it had “exhausted all options and resources” available to it, including “rerouting” and “aircraft and crew replacements”, before being forced to “cancel about 90 flights” on today. He cited the predictions of bad weather and the outbreak of the pandemic attributed to the Omicron variant, which is now considered dominant in the US.

On Tuesday, Delta CEO Ed Bastian asked the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce the duration of quarantine of fully vaccinated workers who are still infected and have symptoms. ) from ten to five days, citing the impact on the availability of his company staff.

The request was echoed by both the airline Airlines of America and the low-cost airline JetBlue on Wednesday.

The CDC revised its sanitary quarantine guidelines yesterday Thursday, reducing the quarantine period to seven days if they are asymptomatic and the SARS-CoV-2 test negative.