JetBlue, said Derek Dombrowski, a JetBlue spokesman, entered the holiday season with its highest staffing levels since the onset of the pandemic but, he added, the airline has “seen an increasing number of sick calls from Omicron.”
A United spokeswoman cited “crew staffing concerns” in the cancellations of flights, which FlightAware said Sunday evening totaled 115.
A spokeswoman said Sunday afternoon that Delta anticipated canceling roughly 200 flights along with another 40 on Monday. Earlier this weekend, Delta attributed the spate of cancellations to “winter weather” and “the Omicron variant.”
A spokesman for American Airlines referred an inquiry to FlightAware, which reported 83 cancellations Sunday.
Southwest Airlines canceled just 68 flights, or 1 percent. The cancellations were caused entirely by weather, said Dan Landson, a Southwest spokesman. “We haven’t had any operational issues related to Covid,” he said in an email. Along with United, Delta and American, Southwest is one of the four largest U.S. carriers.