Over 1,700 US flights were cancelled on Wednesday (January 5), amid a surge in Omicron cases. The total number of flight cancellations since Christmas Eve has now reached approximately 20,000.
The Christmas holidays are typically a peak time for air travel, but the rapid spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has led to a sharp increase in Covid infections. This has forced several airlines to cancel flights.
According to FlightAware, a total of 1,760 flights within, into or out of the US were cancelled. There were also delays in several airlines for US flights. Also, Southwest cancelled 531 flights on Wednesday and United cancelled 169 flights.
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This happened on the same day when the US set global record, reporting more than 1 million cases. Due to weekend tally delays, Monday’s figures are usually higher than those of the weekend and may have been inflated by a three-day New Year’s holiday weekend.
As of Monday evening, Johns Hopkins University reported that the rolling average over seven days, which experts deem more reliable, was 486,000 cases per day.
The Omicron variant accounted for around 59 per cent of cases in the US near the end of last year.
(With inputs from agencies)
