JetBlue cuts hundreds of January flights due to omicron surge as travel disruptions worsen

JetBlue Airways will cut more than 1,280 flights from Thursday through mid-January in anticipation of more Covid-19 infections among pilots and flight attendants, while cancellations continued to climb around the country. New York-based JetBlue and other airlines, including United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, have canceled more than 8,000 flights since Christmas Eve, according to airline data firm FlightAware, as carriers were hit with bad weather and a surge in sick calls from crews. The disruptions cap another rocky year for travel as airlines at times struggled to ramp up flying to meet a resurgence in demand after a paltry 2020. More than 1,100 flights were scrubbed nationwide on Thursday, according to FlightAware. JetBlue canceled 175 flights or 17% of its schedule. United, meanwhile, canceled 192 flights, or 9% of its mainline schedule, while regional airline SkyWest dropped 198, or 8%. Seattle-based Alaska Airlines canceled 95 flights, 14% of what it planned to fly. Delta said it scrapped 250 out of its 4,179 scheduled mainline and regional departures on Thursday because of weather and the omicron variant of Covid. It plans to cancel between 200 and 300 through the weekend. Delta, United and others have offered staff extra pay to pick up shifts to mitigate the disruptions. “This past week has been one of our most difficult operating periods during the pandemic,” three JetBlue department leaders wrote Tuesday in a note to staff, which was seen by CNBC. “The exponential growth in Omicron cases over just a couple of days is at a level that no one could reasonably prepare for.” The planned flight cuts are slightly below 10% of JetBlue’s daily schedules.<br/>