US airline cabin crew, pilots and support staff are reluctant to work overtime during the holiday travel season despite being lured with hefty financial incentives because of the growing fear of contracting COVID-19 and the prospect of dealing with unruly passengers, three airline unions said. That reluctance, combined with bad weather and tight staffing at pandemic-battered airlines, led to massive flight cancellations over the past week, the unions said. The issues will likely result in more strain in the weeks ahead as the spread of the Omicron variant accelerates. "We have negotiated holiday incentives to help with operational challenges, but there's only so far you can stretch people," said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), representing 50,000 flight attendants at 17 airlines. In the months leading up to the holidays, airlines were wooing employees to ensure solid staffing, after furloughing or laying off thousands over the last 18 months as the pandemic crippled the industry. The airline sector is also feeling added pressure as employment numbers still trail pre-pandemic levels, but the total hours worked by fewer staff has almost fully rebounded. The industry was hopeful that staff would pick up overtime to fly a record number of passengers since the pandemic began, according to the AFA. But the fast-spreading Omicron variant, which is leading to unprecedented COVID-19 cases in the US, has caused staff to re-think workloads. On Thursday, over 1,200 flights were canceled within, into, or out of the United States as of 3:29 p.m. ET.<br/>
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Airlines may have thought their pandemic troubles were behind them in the fall as a coronavirus wave subsided and travelers increasingly took to the skies. But a new virus surge and winter storms have left the carriers and their passengers in a holiday mess. Heading into the New Year’s weekend, when return flights will produce another crest in air travel, airlines have been canceling more than 1,000 flights a day to, from or within the United States. Carriers and their employees say the latest chapter of the pandemic, the Omicron variant, has cut deeply into the ability to staff flights, even though a vast majority of crew members are vaccinated. “I’ve never seen a meltdown like this in my life,” said Angelo Cucuzza, the director of organizing at the Transport Workers Union, which represents flight attendants at JetBlue. “They just can’t keep up with the amount of folks that are testing positive.” JetBlue has been one of the airlines hardest hit, canceling 17 percent of its flights on Thursday, according to the air travel data site FlightAware. The carrier said Wednesday that it would cut about 1,280 flights through mid-January, citing the rise in virus cases in the Northeast, where its operations and crews are concentrated. And then there was the weather, always a volatile element in holiday travel but particularly challenging in recent days — notably in the Pacific Northwest, where heavy snowfall and record low temperatures grounded planes last weekend. The next few days may be just as frustrating. Storms in Southern California and the Northwest could combine to dump snow on airline hubs in Denver and Chicago, with severe thunderstorms threatening Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, too, according to Dan DePodwin, director of forecast operations at AccuWeather. Alaska Airlines, whose main hub is Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, went so far as to suggest that people put off nonessential travel until the new year. <br/>
Airlines have been preparing for the holiday season for months, reviewing plans and readying reserves of workers. But that wasn’t enough to mitigate the effects of the fast-spreading Omicron coronavirus and of heavy snow and strong winds in the West. The impact continued to be felt on Thursday, with more than 1,200 cancellations of flights to, from or within the United States by afternoon, according to the air travel data site FlightAware. The site also showed more than 640 cancellations for Friday. The continued disruption comes as the country is averaging more than 260,000 new coronavirus cases a day, greater than the peak levels from last winter. Infection rates are especially high in parts of the Northeast and Midwest. Caseloads have continued to increase rapidly as the Omicron variant spreads, though deaths and hospitalizations have remained relatively steady.The surge has disrupted far more than air travel. New York City has slowed to a crawl as the virus thins the ranks of subway workers and emergency personnel. Cincinnati declared a state of emergency on Wednesday to help the city deal with labor shortages within the city’s Fire Department amid a spike in coronavirus cases that coincided with scheduled holiday vacations. Many cities have canceled or limited New Year’s celebrations. More broadly, the pandemic has caused months of havoc in supply chains. The air carriers hit hard on Thursday included JetBlue, with 17% of its total flights canceled. JetBlue said Wednesday that it was reducing its schedule through Jan. 13. In a statement, the airline said it had “seen a surge” in sick calls because of the Omicron variant, hampering its ability to staff its flights suitably even though it started the holidays with more workers than at any point since the pandemic began. “We expect the number of Covid cases in the Northeast — where most of our crew members are based — to continue to surge for the next week or two,” the company said. “This means there is a high likelihood of additional cancellations until case counts start to come down.”<br/>
Airline cancellations are surging Thursday for a seventh straight day and threaten to throw off weekend flights home for holiday travelers. The spate of cancellations means tens of thousands of travelers are attempting to rebook as the TSA expects 10m more people to pass through airport screening between now and the end of the day Monday. Heavy holiday travel is colliding with a spike in coronavirus cases among aviation industry employees and weather issues. In all, the aviation tracking website FlightAware recorded more than 8,800 US flight cancellations since Christmas Eve, including more than 1,000 on Thursday and nearly 700 already cut from Friday and Saturday schedules. The crew shortages weren't supposed to happen. Airlines have been staffing up and bringing back employees from cost-cutting leaves of absence. Airline payrolls numbered 718,000 in October, the most recent data available from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, up from 669,000 a year earlier.<br/>But the industry says the omicron variant of the coronavirus is sidelining its teams, and successfully asked federal officials to cut back the guidelines for isolation and quarantine. As airlines grapple with crews unavailable for work or stranded out of place, several are signaling the disruptions will persist. Alaska Airlines is pleading with passengers who do not need to travel this week to rebook.<br/>
A US trade group representing major passenger and cargo airlines asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday to halt deployment of new 5G wireless service around many airports, warning thousands of flights could be disrupted. AT&T and Verizon Communications are set on Jan. 5 to deploy C-Band spectrum 5G wireless service that they won in an $80 billion government auction. The petition from industry group Airlines for America seeks a deployment delay near numerous U.S. airports including ones in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, Boston and Seattle. The aviation industry and the FAA have raised significant concerns that 5G might interfere with sensitive aircraft electronics like radio altimeters, which could delay or divert flights. “Aircraft will not be able to rely on radio altimeters for numerous flight procedures and thus will not be able to land at certain airports,” the group said in its emergency FCC petition. It said wireless interference will “jeopardize the function of critical aircraft safety systems, which in turn threatens to divert or cancel thousands of flights” daily. It said this would disrupt “millions of passenger reservations” along with flight crew schedules and global supply chains. The petition seeks an FCC decision by noon EST Monday or the group warned it will “seek judicial or other relief” to avoid “immediate and unacceptable safety risks.”<br/>
A ban on British tourists travelling to Germany is to be lifted, the German embassy has announced. From midnight on Tuesday, January 4 – or 11pm Monday UK time – people coming from the UK who are fully vaccinated or who have an important reason for travelling will be allowed to enter the country. Those who are fully vaccinated will not need a negative Covid test or need to quarantine for 14 days, the embassy said. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps described it as a “welcome development from our German colleagues”. Germany announced earlier this month it was tightening restrictions on travel from the UK in an attempt to curb the spread of the Omicron variant. The rules, which came into force on December 19, banned carriers such as airlines transporting British tourists to Germany.<br/>
US-based lessor Aviation Capital Group has signed for up to 60 Airbus single-aisle jets, including reaching a tentative agreement to take 20 A220s. The leasing firm has placed a firm order for 40 A320neo-family aircraft of which five are A321XLRs, the longest-range version of the A321neo. “These highly advanced aircraft will enhance [our] strategic objective to offer our airline customers the most modern and fuel-efficient aircraft available,” says Aviation Capital Group chief Thomas Baker. Airbus chief commercial officer Christian Scherer states that the decision to take the A220 furthers the twinjet’s reputation as a “growingly desirable aircraft”. The lessor already has direct orders for 46 A320neos and 39 A321neos, of which 35 and 20 had respectively been delivered by the end of November. Aviation Capital Group has not identified an engine selection for the additional A320neos. All A220s are fitted with Pratt & Whitney PW1500G powerplants.<br/>