More canceled flights frustrated air travelers on the final day of 2021 and appeared all but certain to inconvenience hundreds of thousands more over the New Year’s holiday weekend.
Airlines blamed many of the cancellations on crew shortages related to the spike in COVID-19 infections, along with wintry weather in parts of the United States.
By early afternoon Friday on the East Coast, airlines had scrubbed more than 1,400 U.S. flights – about 6% of all scheduled flights – and roughly 2,900 worldwide, according to tracking service FlightAware.
That pushed the total U.S. cancellations since Christmas Eve above 9,000, with the peak of 1,520 on Dec. 26.
The disruptions come just as travel numbers climb higher going into the New Year’s holiday weekend. Since Dec. 16, more than 2 million travelers a day on average have passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints, an increase of nearly 100,000 a day since November and nearly double last December.