NYC Airport Delays: Travel Nightmare Continues As Planes Grounded

NEW YORK CITY — Flight delays and cancellations continue to affect post-holiday travel, with more than 160 flights cancelled and more than 500 delayed at New York metro airports as of 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Airlines cited labor shortages related to the omicron surge for the cancellation of hundreds of flights over the weekend. The problems continued Monday, with more than 8,000 flights to, from and within the United States having been canceled since Christmas Eve, according to data from FlightAware, an online flight tracking service.

As of Tuesday at 5 p.m., FlightAware reported John F. Kennedy International Airport had 162 delays that day and 50 canceled flights.

At LaGuardia, there had been 119 delays and 40 cancellations.

Newark Liberty International had been 229 delays and 73 cancellations.

These numbers represent both incoming and outgoing flights.

Delta, United, JetBlue and American have all cited coronavirus staffing problems. European and Australian airlines also canceled holiday-season flights because staff were infected, but weather and other factors played a role as well, The Associated Press reported.

Weather also played a role in the United States. Snow in the Pacific Northwest Sunday led to nearly 250 flight cancellations in and out of Seattle Sunday, according to Alaska Airlines, which expected about 100 weather-related flight cancellations Monday, the AP reported. COVID-19 wasn’t a factor in the cancellations.

United Airlines canceled 115 of nearly 4,000 flights Monday because staff and crew members called in sick with COVID-19, the airline said.

Complicating matters, Sun Country Airlines and others canceled domestic flights because of a third-party network system outage Monday.

More staffing problems are possible.

“We have seen an increasing number of sick calls from omicron,” the airline said, adding it had entered the holiday season with the highest staffing levels since the pandemic began,” Jet Blue said in a statement.

“Despite our best efforts, we’ve had to cancel a number of flights, and additional flight cancellations and other delays remain a possibility.”