Now Christmas travel hit by virus-related staff shortages
Thousands of flights have been cancelled over the Christmas weekend as Omicron’s spread leads to staff shortages.
According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, some 1,779 flights have been cancelled on Christmas Day and a further 402 for Boxing Day.
Airlines are struggling to staff their full roster of flights as the new variant spreads across Europe and the USA.
Many of the cancellations are for flights in and out of the States.
It is another blow to the already embattled aviation industry which had hoped 2022 would be the year recovery from the pandemic finally took off.
A host of travel in the UK has also been disrupted, with a number of Christmas Eve train services cancelled due to staff isolating with Covid-19 symptoms.
The UK had a record number of infections last week but hope remains that the new strain of Covid-19 is milder than previous iterations.