On one of the year’s busiest weekends for flying, airlines canceled thousands of flights as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus hit flight crews. The disruptions left thousands of travelers frustrated. In all, about 2,000 US flights were canceled on Saturday and Sunday of the Christmas holiday weekend, with roughly 3,000 more grounded globally, according to FlightAware, which provides aviation data. On Sunday alone, more than 1,100 US flights and about 1,700 additional ones across the world were canceled. While some of the groundings were caused by perennial problems like bad weather and maintenance issues, several airlines acknowledged that the current wave of Covid-19 cases, which has risen in the United States to a level not seen since last winter, contributed significantly. A JetBlue spokesman, for instance, said the airline had “seen an increasing number of sick calls from Omicron.” Eleven percent of JetBlue flights, 5% of Delta flights, 5% of United flights and 2% of American Airlines flights on Sunday had been canceled by the afternoon, according to FlightAware.<br/>Southwest canceled just 63 flights, or 1%, according to FlightAware, and the cancellations were caused entirely by weather, said Dan Landson, a Southwest spokesman. “We haven’t had any operational issues related to Covid,” he said. Traveling rebounded sharply this year, making the situation at airports worse: Roughly two million people passed through screening checkpoints each day last week, according to the TSA. The numbers on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were much higher than the equivalent figures last year, and some figures even exceeded those of the same days two years ago, when virtually no Americans were aware of a virus then beginning to circulate halfway around the world.<br/>
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US airlines canceled more than 1,300 flights on Sunday as COVID-19 thinned out the number of available crews, while several cruise ships had to cancel stops after outbreaks on board, upending the plans of thousands of Christmas travelers. Commercial airlines had canceled 1,318 flights within, into or out of the United States by mid-afternoon, according to a tally on flight-tracking website FlightAware.com. At least three cruise ships were also forced to return to port without making scheduled port calls after COVID-19 cases were detected on board, according to multiple media reports. It was the third straight day of pain for some Americans traveling over the weekend as the Christmas holidays, typically a peak time for travel, coincided with a rapid spread of the Omicron variant nationwide. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease official, warned of rising US cases in coming days and potentially "overrun...hospitals, particularly in those regions in which you have a larger proportion of unvaccinated individuals." "It likely will go much higher," he said of the Omicron-driven surge even as President Joe Biden last week unveiled new actions aimed at containing the latest wave and continued urging vaccinations and other prevention strategies. With rising infections, airlines have been forced to cancel flights with pilots and cabin crew needing to quarantine while poor weather in some areas added to travelers woes.<br/>
While the number of people flying out of US airports this year has matched, and at one point exceeded, 2019 levels, Christmas Eve air travel fell sharply below pre-pandemic levels. Thousands of Christmas weekend flights were canceled at the last minute because of staff and crew calling out sick amid the Omicron surge. The new variant has become the dominant strain of coronavirus in the US. More than 1.7m people passed through TSA checkpoints Friday, TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said on Twitter. This is more than 800,000 fewer people than the nearly 2.6m screened in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic. That number is still higher than the 846,520 people the agency screened on Christmas Eve of 2020. Less than three weeks after Omicron was first detected in the US, it accounted for over 73% of all new cases as of Monday, according to data from the US CDC. In spite of rising coronavirus cases, millions are still flying with the TSA reporting 2.19m people screened at airports across the country on Thursday, the highest figure since the uptick in holiday travel started a week ago. On Wednesday, there were more people traveling through US airports than in 2019. Globally, airlines have canceled about 5,700 flights on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after, according to FlightAware. That includes about 1,700 flights within, into or out of the United States.<br/>
The Biden administration will lift travel restrictions on eight southern African countries imposed last month over concerns about the fast-spreading COVID-19 Omicron variant, the White House said Friday. Foreign nationals who are barred from the United States because they have been in one of the eight countries within the prior 14 days will again be allowed on U.S.-bound flights leaving after 12:01 a.m. ET on Dec. 31, a senior official said, confirming a Reuters report. The United States on Nov. 29 barred nearly all non-US citizens who had recently been in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi in an "abundance of caution" over the variant detected in South Africa. White House spokesman Kevin Munoz tweeted that Biden "will lift the temporary travel restrictions on Southern Africa countries" effective Dec. 31. He said the decision was recommended by the CDC. "The restrictions gave us time to understand Omicron and we know our existing vaccines work against Omicron, esp boosted," Munoz tweeted. Reuters reported earlier US public health agencies had recommended lifting the travel restrictions because retaining them would have not a significant impact on US cases given the widespread current U. transmission, confidence that an Omicron-specific vaccine would not be necessary and that existing vaccines and booster shots are highly effective.<br/>
The new Palmerola International Airport in Honduras has welcomed its first passengers, with Spirit Airlines as the first scheduled carrier. This comes following five years of planning, developing, as well as commissioning. Spirit Airlines has regular flights from Houston and four weekly flights from Miami. As of now, around five airlines are running global flights to Palmerola Airport. American Airlines links Palmerola twelve times per week with Miami and three times weekly with Dallas while United Airlines provides a daily service to Houston. Avianca runs daily flights to El Salvador and four times weekly to Guatemala City, and Copa Airlines operates daily flights to Panama City. From next month, Spirit Airlines intends to introduce additional flights to Ford Lauderdale while AeroMexico aims to add flights to Mexico City.<br/>
Xian in northwest China reported an increase in daily COVID-19 infections for Friday, and local companies curtailed activity as the country's latest COVID-19 hot spot entered its third day of lockdown. The city of 13 million detected 75 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms for Friday, its highest daily count of the year and reversing the previous day's decline, official data showed on Saturday. In the southern city of Shenzhen, five passengers who arrived on Wednesday, on a flight from Los Angeles, tested positive for coronavirus, and three were confirmed to be Omicron infections on Dec. 24, China's state broadcaster CCTV reported. Xian, which started a new round of mass testing on Saturday, has announced no infections caused by the Omicron variant. Nationwide, China has reported a handful of Omicron infections among international travellers and in southern China. Xian's locally transmitted symptomatic cases, at 330 for the Dec. 9-24 period, are few compared with outbreaks in many other countries, but the city has imposed heavy-handed measures in line with Beijing's policy to contain local transmission as quickly as possible. Residents are banned from leaving town without clearance from employers or local authorities and households can send only one person to shop for necessities every two days.<br/>
New travel rules to curb the spread of omicron in Hong Kong look set to isolate the Asian financial hub even further, with at least four international carriers banned from operating certain routes in the month since the more transmissible variant emerged. Although Hong Kong was already hewing to the Covid-zero policy being pursued by China, authorities tightened rules again this week, mandating that if four or more passengers are confirmed to have Covid-19 on arrival from the same place within seven days, that route will be suspended for 14 days. Qatar Airways and Cathay Pacific Airways have had routes from Doha and New York, respectively, put on hold until early January, while Nepal Airlines and Air India flights between Hong Kong and Kathmandu and Delhi have also been impacted. Cathay warned of several more flight cancellations on Wednesday, just days after its services from New York were suspended until Jan. 2 after three passengers on that route were found to have Covid. <br/>
Suvarnabhumi Airport expects to handle almost 50,000 passengers a day during the New Year festival. General manager Kittipong Kittikachorn said that over the 12-day period from Dec 25 to Jan 5, some 591,090 passengers in total, or 49,258 passengers a day, are expected, up 72.2% over the same period last year. The projected tally comprises 188,637 international passengers and 402,453 domestic travellers, he said. Aircraft take-offs and landings are estimated at 5,961, or a daily average of 497, up by 11.8%. The top three carriers offering the most special flights in the period are Bangkok Airways with 169 flights, THAI Smile Airways (50) and T-Way Airlines, the South Korean low-cost airline, (17). The airport says its facilities are ready to cater to the surging number of departure passengers including more staff on duty and cleaning services to mitigate the spread of the Covid-19, Kittipong said.<br/>
Thousands of Australians face the prospect of being unable to board flights home for Christmas as wait times for COVID tests balloon out. The Northern Territory, Queensland and Tasmania are still asking passengers from ‘high risk’ areas to test negative via a PCR test 72 hours before departure, alongside many other international countries. However, a surge in Omicron cases has caused long queues and results to take days to process. The testing chaos has also caused aviation staff to be forced to isolate, leading to flights being cancelled or delayed. On Thursday, 80 services departing and arriving in Sydney had already been cancelled. A Jetstar spokesman said, “Unfortunately like many people in Sydney and Melbourne, a large number of our frontline team are being required to test and isolate as close contacts given the increasing number of cases in the general community, and as a result, we have had to make some late adjustments to our schedule. We appreciate the frustration this causes, especially as customers are travelling for Christmas, and sincerely apologise for the impact these changes are having on travel plans. We are working to minimise any delays and re-accommodating passengers on flights as close as possible to their original departure times across both Jetstar and Qantas services.” Virgin said while it was operating hundreds of services today with little to no impact, it apologised for any passengers affected by changes.<br/>
CK Asset Holdings, the Hong Kong conglomerate founded by the city’s richest man, has agreed to sell its aircraft leasing businesses for a total of $4.28b, as it draws back from an industry hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. An investment company managed by Carlyle Group will purchase CK Asset’s aircraft assets, said the Hong Kong company Friday. The sale comes as the Omicron coronavirus variant has upended the aviation sector and clouded the outlook for the international travel industry just as parts of the world were beginning to open up. “Covid-19 has caused a paradigm shift in the aircraft leasing sector. The risk and return dynamics has become volatile and unpredictable, and the industry has undergone increased consolidation, mergers and acquisitions activities to mitigate such volatility,” CK Asset said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. The company, founded by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing, estimated that the sale would generate about $170m in profits. The group’s shares rose as much as 4.1% on Friday, their biggest gain in more than a month. CK Asset said the businesses had generated consistent returns but the proceeds from the sale would generate working capital allowing it to “enhance its strategic focus during the pandemic”. Local officials have also faced punishment over the outbreak, and domestic flights scheduled to depart the city on Friday were cancelled.<br/>