'Chaos at Every Airport' Omicron-Driven Christmas Flight Crisis

2300 Flight Cancellations Worldwide
3500 Flights Canceled by Tomorrow
Train Services Also Affected

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] On Christmas Eve, flight cancellations continued at airports worldwide, leaving travelers bewildered.

Passengers are waiting in front of the airline counters at Denver International Airport amid a large number of flight cancellations ahead of Christmas. [Image source=AP Yonhap News]

US media outlets including CNN cited the flight tracking site FlightAware on the 24th (local time) to report real-time global flight cancellation status by hour.

The number of cancellations, which was about 2,000 in the morning, increased to 2,300 as of 2:30 PM.

In the United States, cancellations increased from about 500 in the morning to 600 in the afternoon. United Airlines canceled 180 flights, Delta 165 flights, and JetBlue 72 flights. Although it varies by airline, at least 5% of flights were canceled.

American Airlines, which had previously experienced a large-scale cancellation crisis, had almost no flight cancellations.

The total number of flights canceled worldwide on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day has reached 3,500. Airlines expect the situation will not change significantly on the 25th and 26th.

This is due to a sharp increase in demand for air travel during the Christmas holiday season, but the spread of Omicron has caused airline staff to become infected or be classified as close contacts, resulting in widespread inability to work and worsening labor shortages.

Severe weather also exacerbated the cancellation situation.

Travelers are experiencing great inconvenience. At every airport, travelers whose flights were canceled lined up long in front of airline counters, and staff were reported by The New York Times to be overwhelmed. Travelers anxiously watched airport information boards, worried their flights might be canceled.

The New York Times reported, "The spread of Omicron is impacting Christmas holidays worldwide."

Trains are also affected by Omicron. UK National Rail warned that train operations connecting London and across the UK are expected to face disruptions. France's SNCF also announced cancellations of some regional trains.

As Omicron spreads rapidly, the COVID-19 situation in the United States is worsening. On this day, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced 44,431 new cases. This is a 14% increase compared to the previous day's 38,835 cases. The number of tests reached 360,000.

The New York Times reported that the number of new infections in the US on this day was 187,000.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.