CNN has an article out this morning about a travel nightmare in the US and abroad with thousand of canceled flights stranding passengers everywhere:
More than 2,000 flights have been canceled Monday as Covid cases surge across the globe.
Of the more than 2,400 canceled flights, nearly 900 were within, into or out of the United States, according to FlightAware. More than 6,500 flights are delayed.
Globally, airlines canceled more than 6,000 flights on Christmas Eve, Christmas and the day after Christmas. In the United States, more than 1,200 flights were canceled and more than 5,000 were delayed on Sunday alone as staff and crew call out sick.
Alaska Airlines, which canceled 105 flights of 15% of its operations Monday, attributed its cancellations and delays on winter weather in the Pacific Northwest.
“Snow and wintry conditions are creating a bit of a bah-humbug for our operations to and from Seattle, including flight cancellations and delays,” Alaska Airlines said on its blog Sunday.
United Airlines (UAL) said last week it had to cancel hundreds of flights because it lacked enough crew members to safely fly all of its scheduled routes.
“The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” said a United memo obtained by CNN.
Delta (DAL) said it was working to get all stranded travelers home as quickly as possible.
“We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans,” Delta said in a statement. “Delta people are working hard to get them to where they need to be as quickly and as safely as possible on the next available flight.”
Notice anything missing in this article about canceled flights? I certainly do and I expect you do too.
Let me demonstrate with this article from American Greatness:
United Pilots Laid Off Due to Vaccine Mandate Say They Could Have Prevented Holiday Flight Disruptions
“This was unexpected,” said United Airline spokesperson Maddie King.
A group of sidelined United Airline employees say the airline should have expected staff shortages when it put hundreds of pilots and flight attendants on unpaid leave.
CEO Scott Kirby recently testified before the Senate Commerce Committee that “about 80” pilots were on unpaid leave. But the Airline Employees 4 Health Freedom (AE4HF) said at least 354 pilots in its organization have been put on unpaid leave.
AE4HF is a nonprofit organization with 2000-plus United Airiness employees who are fighting to protect the “right to bodily autonomy and faith-based reasonable accommodations for all employees across all industries.”
AE4HF said United miscalculated badly when it imposed its strict vaccine requirement.
“Kirby grounded our co-workers without pay due to their faith and/or doctors recommendations against the shot on Nov 12. UAL [United Airlines] thought they would quickly restaff not foreseeing the Omicron,” AE4HF wrote. “Because everyone at flight training is vaxxed, they stopped the masking and social distancing. Boom. Closed the pilot and flight training center due to massive outbreak and fell behind.”
“Meanwhile, we sit ready to fly,” AE4HF said in the email. “This has cost the passengers terribly by ruining their holiday and the shareholders with needless expenses. We could have helped.”
The 354 laid off pilots could have made up 177 flight crews, (there are two pilots per flight), AE4HF explained. Pilots are scheduled an average of seven flights in a four-day period, thus from Dec. 23 to Dec. 26, the sidelined pilots could have hypothetically flown 1239 flights, AE4HF said.
“If Kirby had returned us to work, we could have easily covered that with folks to spare,” the email stated. “Every one of us is home, bags packed and ready to work.”
Because of Biden’s vaccine mandate and United’s willingness to go along with it, 354 or their pilots are just sitting at home, twiddling their thumbs while travelers everywhere bear the brunt of this ridiculous mandate.
Sure, Omicron is taking its toll on the airline industry right now. But the real story is how Darth Biden crippled holiday travel with his outrageous mandate and the CNN’s of the world are refusing to even mention it. This is why they are fake news.