At least 940 Christmas Day flights within or bound to the US have been canceled, and another 1,555 flights have been delayed, according to live data from FlightAware.
United, which called off 189 flights (10% of its schedule) on Friday and more than 230 flights on Saturday, issued a statement to address the stranding of travelers nationwide.
"The nationwide spike in omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” United said in a statement. “As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport."
Delta AIr Lines released a similar notice on its cancellations, admitting to customers that it "had exhausted all options and resources—including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying."
Both airlines expressed that they are attempting to rebook passengers for later flights.
24 December 2021, 22:41 GMT
American Airlines emphasized that its company took a proactive approach and precancelled some trips.
"[A] number of COVID-related sick calls led us to make the difficult decision to precancel some flights scheduled for today," American Airlines told the Hill in a statement on Saturday, noting that customers were notified the day before their scheduled flight.
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) data showed that, despite the ongoing pandemic, travelers are coming out in full force, with more than 1.7 million and 2.1 million air travel passengers logged on Thursday and Friday, respectively. Last year, less than 850,000 passengers traveled each day.
TSA expects to screen around 30 million individuals between December 20 and January 3.