Airlines cancellations are set to get even worse. Here’s why thousands of flights have been scrapped since Christmas Eve.

Airlines cancellations are set to get even worse. Here’s why thousands of flights have been scrapped since Christmas Eve.

Airlines are continuing to slash flights as rising numbers of staff are infected by the and bad weather disrupts parts of the US. It could get even worse as COVID-19 cases continue to rise, affecting the planning to travel of the New Years weekend. Around 20,000 flights have been canceled since Christmas Eve, according to figures from the flight-tracking website . More than 3,000 flights were canceled on Thursday, with almost half of these arriving in or departing from the US, and more than 17,000 flights were delayed. As of Friday morning, more than 2,400 flights scheduled to depart that day had been cut. And scheduled for between December 30 and January 13, 2022, in anticipation of continuing staffing issues. Delta also said it expected to cancel over the New Year weekend. Some US airlines have attributed their cancellations to staff members who have caught or been exposed to the coronavirus as cases in the US soar. Omicron has become the in the US, and studies suggest that the variant is than previous variants. A JetBlue spokesperson that the airline had seen "a surge in the number of sick calls from Omicron." The airline canceled 179 flights on Thursday, or