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As the number of people who had managed to travel by plane during this year reached and at one point, even surpassed that of 2019, air traffic on Christmas Eve suffered a drastic decline compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Thousands of flights over the Christmas weekend were canceled at the last minute because staff and crew members fell ill one after another from Omicron’s rising tide.
The new variant has become the dominant strain of coronavirus in the US. FlightAware, a website that collects flight data, reports that 888 international and domestic flights were canceled on Saturday, compared to 690 that were canceled on Friday. About 200 more flights were canceled on Sunday. The airlines Delta, United and JetBlue had said on Friday that the Omicron variant was causing problems with the staff and this has resulted in flight cancellations. United spokeswoman Maddie King said staff shortages were continuing to cause cancellations and it was unclear when operations would return to normal.
To alleviate staff shortages, various countries, including Spain and the United Kingdom, have reduced the quarantine duration for COVID-19 by allowing people to return to work sooner after being tested positive or exposed to the virus.Delta CEO , Ed Bastian, is among those who have called on President Biden’s administration to take similar steps or else air travel disruptions will continue.
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