Omicron behind more than 100 flights canceled at O'Hare
Many season's greetings were delayed Saturday and Sunday, as more than 100 departures and arrivals were canceled at O'Hare International Airport.
Airlines canceled flights in droves over the weekend, primarily due to COVID-19 related staffing issues.
On Sunday, O'Hare continued seeing flight cancellations, although not as severe as the day before.
An examination of both arriving and departing flights from O'Hare on the website airport-ohare.com, indicated that unofficially, more than 50 departing flights and more than 60 arriving flights were canceled over the two days.
Nationwide, FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, noted nearly 1,000 flights entering, leaving or inside the U.S. were canceled Saturday, up from 690 flights scrapped on Friday.
More than 1,100 more flights were canceled for Sunday.
Delta, United and JetBlue all said Friday that crews coming down with the omicron variant were behind the flight cancellations.
United spokesperson Maddie King said Saturday that staffing shortages were still causing cancellations and it was unclear when normal operations would return.
"This was unexpected," she said of omicron's impact on staffing. Medical experts are calling omicron the most contagious variant yet.
The Chicago Department of Aviation media relations office did not offer any flight cancellation numbers for the holiday weekend and directed reporters to the individual airlines.
• The Associated Press reports contributed to this report.