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CANADIAN carrier WestJet Airlines will cancel 15% of its scheduled flights in January 2022 as the rapid spread of Omicron’s COVID-19 variant has rendered the airline unable to operate fully staffed, the company said Thursday.
The announcement from the privately owned and headquartered WestJet in Calgary, Alberta, comes after numerous North American flight cancellations due to a spike in COVID-19 cases and extreme winter weather.
There are 181 WestJet staff currently out of work due to COVID-19, up 35% in recent days, a company spokeswoman for Morgan Bell said in an email. WestJet operates around 450 flights per day, meaning 68 flights per day face cancellations. Bell said destinations with warm weather, international and domestic flights would all be affected.
“We could not have anticipated the rapid and unpredictable impact of the Omicron variant on our people and operations, coupled with prolonged cold temperatures across Western Canada and a global staff shortage,” WestJet Chief Executive Harry Taylor said in a statement posted on the airline’s website.
WestJet said it would try to consolidate flights with the least risk and notify potential passengers in advance.
Its rival, Air Canada, has canceled about four percent of its flights over the past week although most of the changes were due to bad winter weather rather than COVID-19 infections, the company said in an email.
“While overall we have crews to operate the flights, some of the airline’s third-party service and support providers have experienced that operational bottleneck, along with difficult winter conditions, have affected the current schedule,” said Air Canada.
The airline will evaluate and adjust the 2022 route schedule as needed in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions. [antaranews.com]
