WASHINGTON/NEW YORK: US airlines cancelled nearly 1,200 flights on Sunday (Dec 26) as COVID-19 thinned out the number of available crews, while several cruise ships had to cancel stops after outbreaks on board, upending the plans of thousands of Christmas travellers.
Commercial airlines had cancelled 1,171 flights within, into or out of the United States by mid-afternoon, according to a tally on flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.
At least three cruise ships were forced to return to port without making scheduled port calls after COVID-19 cases were detected on board, according to multiple media reports.
Enjoli Rodriguez, 25, whose Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to Lexington, Kentucky, was cancelled on Christmas Eve, was one of the thousands still stranded on Sunday.
Delta rebooked Rodriguez on an early afternoon flight that connected in Detroit, but that flight was delayed by hours so she missed the connection to Lexington.
Speaking from the Detroit airport on Sunday, Rodriguez said she was surrounded by angry passengers, flustered airline representatives and families with young children in limbo.
“I’ve run into a lot of people sharing their horror stories here. We’re all just stuck in Michigan, Detroit, heading different places,” Rodriguez, who was rebooked on a later flight to Kentucky, told Reuters.
It was the third straight day of pain for Americans travelling over the holiday weekend.
A total of 997 flights were scrapped on Christmas Day and nearly 700 on Christmas Eve. Thousands more were delayed on all three days.
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