U.S. airlines canceled thousands more flights over the weekend as the industry tried to move past its holiday hangover.
Bad weather and coronavirus outbreaks among workers continued to disrupt schedules across the United States. But airlines have also called off many recent flights in advance so they can correct course at a traditionally slow time for travel, without surprising customers with last-minute cancellations.
About 5,000 flights were canceled from Friday through Sunday, according to FlightAware, a data tracking service, with the daily number of cuts declining steadily over that period. Southwest Airlines suspended over 1,000 flights, more than any other carrier. SkyWest Airlines, which operates flights for several major carriers, and United Airlines each canceled more than 500 flights.
The turmoil began before Christmas, caused by bad weather in the West and staff shortages because of virus outbreaks among employees. Snowfall in the Northeast continued to wreak havoc at major airport hubs across the country into the first weekend of this month. The disruption for airlines and travelers is on track to become the most severe since more than 56,000 flights were canceled in a single week at the outset of the pandemic, when people didn't want to fly.
Laura Leonard was one of thousands of passengers affected by the recent airline disruptions. At first, she was thrilled to get time off work to visit her mother in Connecticut over the holidays.
The trip was supposed to be quick, just four days during New Year's weekend, but after months on the front lines of the pandemic as a caseworker at a Chicago-area hospital, she was eager for a break. Then, 90 minutes before her scheduled departure back home a week ago, Southwest Airlines canceled the flight.
It cost nearly $500 to get back to Chicago -- two days later and on another airline. During the mad scramble to return home, she considered renting a car and driving 900 miles. The $680 price tag was just too much, she said.
"I just wanted my time off. I wanted to enjoy it," Leonard said. "But this is -- it's upsetting and I don't know. I've never gone through anything like this, and I am just so bummed."
Airlines say they are continuing to adapt.
THINKING ON THEIR FEET
"Given the ongoing surge in COVID cases and related sick calls, we've been working with each of our major partners to proactively reduce our January schedules," SkyWest said in a statement. The airline operates flights for United, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines and said the pullback is intended to "ensure we're able to adequately staff our remaining flying as we work to recover in the coming weeks."
After canceling flights at high rates over the holidays, JetBlue Airways said it would preemptively cut about 1,300 flights in the first half of January. Alaska Airlines said in a statement last week that it would slash about 1 in 10 flights planned for the month to gain "the flexibility and capacity needed to reset."
As in many other industries, airlines are also contending with workers calling in sick at high rates as the omicron virus variant spreads at an astonishing speed.
"It has been one of the most difficult operational environments we've ever faced," Allison Ausband, Delta's chief customer experience officer, said in a statement last week apologizing to customers for the disorder.
To deal with staffing shortages, many carriers have started offering extra pay to those who were otherwise not scheduled to work. Southwest, for example, said last week that it was offering double pay for most of the month to employees who picked up extra shifts, incentives available to workers across its operation, including ground staff, flight attendants, customer service employees, flight schedulers and maintenance technicians.
The speed with which the omicron variant has spread took the nation by surprise, but there's some evidence airlines could have been better prepared, industry analysts say. Flight-cancellation data shows one carrier, American Airlines, has seen significantly less disruption than others.
David Seymour, American's chief operating officer, attributed the lower numbers to work that began as the carrier sought to rebound from the first year of the pandemic. That effort hit hurdles early on -- with American facing waves of cancellations in June and October -- but Seymour said the airline recruited staff, brought back those who were on leave and offered incentives to employees who agreed to work extra hours.
Seymour said American built a December schedule it could adequately staff. The airline couldn't predict the rise of the omicron variant, but had built in a buffer in case of the unexpected, Seymour said.
While the number of scrubbed flights has been the biggest obstacle for travelers, it's not the only disruption. About one-third of flights nationwide that have taken off in the past two weeks have been late, with the average delay topping 50 minutes on some days, according to FlightAware.
LATE JETS, LOST BAGS
Then there are the hundreds of suitcases and bags still to be claimed at airports -- some that didn't follow passengers onto connecting flights; others that were lost when passengers were rerouted through different airports after their original flights were canceled. At Reagan National Airport, an American Airlines hub where more than 85% of flights were canceled Monday, baggage claim was filled with unclaimed bags.
American said in a statement that "residual winter storm impacts, icy roads and aircraft deicing conditions inhibited our recovery efforts," adding that it is working to reunite passengers with their luggage.
Despite the protracted spell of chaos, however, industry watchers say a meltdown that left fuming travelers stranded at airports is unlikely to have a lasting effect on airlines' recovery from the pandemic. They say the same dynamics that have pushed demand for travel to near pre-pandemic levels in recent months will continue well into the new year.
"There remains tremendous pent-up demand for air travel, be it leisure, long-haul international or business, which will fill seats, driving our positive industry outlook," Jonathan Root, a senior vice president at Moody's Investors Service, wrote in a report this month.
Helane Becker, an airlines analyst at financial firm Cowen, said that while the course of the pandemic is hard to predict and new variants could pose fresh challenges, people are ready to move beyond the pandemic.
"People have had it with covid," she said. "They're sick of hearing about it. They're sick of talking about it."
Seymour, the American executive, said the airline is expecting a strong summer with rising demand for travel. But as recent weeks have shown, he said, the pandemic could present surprises.
"What the country feels, we're going to feel," he said.
Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst with Atmosphere Research Group, said airlines are hoping the country moves beyond the worst of omicron by the middle of February.
"Airlines want to be ready to capitalize and be ready for what I suspect will be a very, very strong spring and summer travel season," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Niraj Chokshi of The New York Times and by Lori Aratani and Ian Duncan of The Washington Post.