For third day, COVID-19 crimps Americans’ holiday travels

Passengers line up at John F. Kennedy International Airport during the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant in Queens, New York City, U.S., December 26, 2021. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — U.S. airlines canceled nearly 1,200 flights on Sunday as COVID-19 thinned out the number of available crews, while several cruise ships had to cancel stops after outbreaks on board, upending the plans of thousands of Christmas travelers.

Commercial airlines had canceled 1,171 flights within, into or out of the United States by mid-afternoon, according to a tally on flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.

At least three cruise ships were forced to return to port without making scheduled port calls after COVID-19 cases were detected on board, according to multiple media reports.

Enjoli Rodriguez, 25, whose Delta Air Lines Inc flight from Los Angeles to Lexington, Kentucky, was canceled on Christmas Eve, was one of the thousands still stranded on Sunday.

Delta rebooked Rodriguez on an early afternoon flight that connected in Detroit, but that flight was delayed by hours so she missed the connection to Lexington.

Speaking from the Detroit airport on Sunday, Rodriguez said she was surrounded by angry passengers, flustered airline representatives and families with young children in limbo.

“I’ve run into a lot of people sharing their horror stories here. We’re all just stuck in Michigan, Detroit, heading different places,” Rodriguez, who was rebooked on a later flight to Kentucky, told Reuters.

It was the third straight day of pain for Americans traveling over the holiday weekend.

A total of 997 flights were scrapped on Christmas Day and nearly 700 on Christmas Eve. Thousands more were delayed on all three days.

The Christmas holidays, typically a peak time for travel, coincided with a rapid spread of the Omicron variant nationwide.

With surging infections, airlines have been forced to cancel flights with pilots and cabin crew needing to quarantine.

Poor weather in some areas also added to travelers woes.

A spokesperson for Delta said “winter weather in portions of the U.S. and the Omicron variant continued to impact” its holiday weekend flight schedule but that it was working to “reroute and substitute aircraft and crews to get customers where they need to be as quickly and safely as possible.”

Separately, a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines said all of their cancellations were weather related.

Overall, U.S. airports most heavily impacted were in Seattle, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and JFK International in New York.

United Airlines said it had to cancel around 100 flights on Sunday but was working to rebook impacted passengers.

A White House official, who asked not to be named, said that despite the mess at some airports, “we’re in a better place than last Christmas” and noted “only a small percentage of flights are affected.”

Globally, FlightAware data showed that 2,824 flights were called off and more than 12,497 were delayed, as of 6 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) on Sunday.

Ships turned back

Meanwhile, a Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd cruise ship returned to Ft. Lauderdale, CNN reported, and on Sunday a Carnival Corp ship went back to Miami after positive cases of the novel coronavirus were detected onboard.

It was unclear if the cases were the Omicron variant.

Carnival said “a small number on board were isolated due to a positive COVID test” on board its Carnival Freedom ship that returned to Miami and left later on Sunday for its next trip with another round of passengers.

“The rapid spread of the Omicron Variant may shape how some destination authorities with limited medical resources may view even a small number of cases, even when they are being managed with our vigorous protocols. Should it be necessary to cancel a port, we will do our best to find an alternative destination,” it said in a statement.

A Holland America ship also returned to San Diego on Sunday after Mexican authorities banned it from docking in Puerto Vallarta citing an active outbreak on board, NBC News and Fox News reported. Carnival, which owns Holland America, did not address that incident in its statement.

Representatives for Royal Caribbean did not immediately return a request for comment.

Omicron was first detected in November and now accounts for nearly three-quarters of U.S. cases and as many as 90% in some areas, such as the Eastern Seaboard. The average number of new U.S. coronavirus cases has risen 45% to 179,000 per day over the past week, according to a Reuters tally.

While recent research suggests Omicron produces milder illness and a lower rate of hospitalizations than previous iterations, health officials have maintained a cautious outlook and say much remains to be learned about the variant.