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 1,100 cancellations of flights to, from or within the United States by midday, according to the air travel data site FlightAware. By Thursday morning, the site was also showing more than 500 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…
