Airline cancellations could get worse this weekend

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/>