Dec 29, 2021: US carriers Delta Airlines and Alaska Air Group canceled hundreds of flights on Tuesday due to bad weather and increasing cases of omicron variant.

Delta said it expects to cancel more than 250 of the 4,133 scheduled flights on Tuesday, while Alaska has canceled 170 flights on its network and warned of more cancellations and delays throughout the week. The total number of cancellations inside or outside the US at 19.00 GMT was 1,034, with 2,694 flights delayed, marking the fifth day of flight cancellations. Delta said it was working to re-route and replace some aircraft.

Alaska Airlines says that as it departs on Wednesdays and Thursdays, it is reducing departures to Seattle by about 20% to allow extra time for de-icing planes before flights, a requirement for the winter season.

Despite the ongoing disruption, the US. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday it is not currently considering a vaccine mandate for domestic flights, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist, said yesterday.

“Right now, what we’re talking about is ways to get people vaccinated. Certainly domestic flights has been a topic of conversation, but that is not something we’re revisiting right now,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on National Public Radio when asked about Fauci’s comment.

US carriers also canceled more than 1,000 flights on Monday after grounding thousands of planes over the weekend over the Christmas holidays as the airlines struggled with staff shortages due to the Covid-19 infection and bad weather in some parts of the country.

Snowy weather in the northwestern Pacific Ocean coast on Monday led to the cancellation of more than 110 flights landing at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Rising infections that have led to quarantine of pilots and cabin crew have also forced many flights to be canceled.

In the last seven days, the average number of new cases of Covid-19 in the US has increased by 55% to more than 205,000, according to Reuters.

To reduce effects of staff shortages in airlines, the CDC said on Monday it was shortening the recommended isolation time for infected Americans to five days from 10 days previously, if they are asymptomatic.

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