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Frustrated fliers hoping the airline industry would turn over a new leaf for the new year saw cancellations and delays continue to be the norm as the calendar flipped to 2022.
Airlines canceled 4,715 flights across the globe on Saturday, including 2,732 flights connected to the US, according to the tracking service FlightAware.
And 2,600 international flights had already been canceled for Sunday by the end of New Year’s Day, with 60 percent of them within the US, or with one leg in the country.
The groundings — along with some 12,000 weekend delays worldwide — marked the biggest disruption since the days before Christmas, when widespread cases of COVID-19’s among flight crews forced airlines to cancel flights en masse.
Inclement weather was a factor in a large percentage of the most recent wave of cancellations. More than 1,000 flights were scrubbed at Chicago’s two airports over warnings of heavy snow and wind; other Midwestern hubs were also affected.
Southwest, SkyWest and China Eastern airlines all canceled more than 450 flights each Sunday.
Over 12,000 domestic flights were canceled in the last week of 2021.
Airlines have incentivized staff with double and triple pay to fill January shifts in an effort get through the holiday season into the middle of the month, when demand typically drops.
With Post wires
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