Thousands of flights canceled globally as Omicron

NYC- Commercial airlines around the world have canceled more than 4,500 flights over the Christmas weekend, as a growing wave of COVID-19 infections, driven by the Omicron variant, has created more uncertainty and anxiety for holiday travelers. Of

Global carriers abandoned at least 2,401 flights on Friday, which fell on Christmas Eve and is usually a difficult day for air travel, according to a review on FlightAware.com. Another 10,000 flights were delayed.

The website reported that 1,779 Christmas flights were canceled worldwide, along with another 402 scheduled for Sunday.

Commercial air traffic in and out of the United States accounted for more than a quarter of all canceled flights over the weekend, according to FlightAware.

United Airlines and Delta Airlines (DAL.N) were among the first U.S. carriers to report a wave of holiday weekend cancellations, citing staff shortages amid a wave of COVID-19 infections that occurred only on Friday. Cleared about 280 joint flights.

In recent days there has been an increase in COVID-19 infections in the United States due to the highly transferable variant Omicron, which was first detected in November and now has about three-quarters of cases in the United States and in some areas. Up to 90%, such as the East Coast. Read more

The average number of new cases of the US corona virus has risen by 45% to 179,000 a day in the past week,