Airlines Log Busiest Days Since Early 2020 Over Thanksgiving But Omicron Poses New Challenge – NBC 7 San Diego

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• The cancellations were minimal compared to the mass disruptions earlier this year.
• Southwest and American were among the airlines that offered their employees additional bonus payments for vacation travel.
• Concerns about the Omicron variant led to new travel restrictions in the UK, US, Japan, Israel and elsewhere.

U.S. airlines had some of their busiest days since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic during Thanksgiving week, when travelers flocked to reunite with their families after a subdued vacation last year.

The Transportation Security Administration checked nearly 2.5 million People on Sunday, most of them since February 15, 2020. That was about 15% fewer than two years previously examined by the TSA.

Airports, planes, and parking lots were crowded, but travelers and airlines have been lucky with mostly good weather and a low number of cancellations, in contrast to the mass disruptions that have affected hundreds of thousands of passengers in multiple episodes since this summer.

Airlines, including Southwest and American, had offered flight attendants and other employees additional pay or rewards for working holiday travel and meeting attendance goals.

Despite the increase in air travel over the holidays, airlines are now facing a new challenge as more and more countries are reporting cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, just as international travel increased as more and more nations relaxed travel rules.

Airlines said bookings skyrocketed when travel restrictions on international tourism from more than 30 countries were lifted in the US on Nov. 8. International travel is key to the airlines’ financial recovery from the pandemic.

Scientists in South Africa were the first to discover the new variant.

The new strain has raised concerns with health officials as to whether it might be more easily transferable. Cases of Omicron have been found in South Africa, the UK, Israel, Hong Kong, Canada, and other countries. Dutch health officials said on Sunday they found at least 13 cases of Omicron in 61 passengers who tested positive for Covid on two flights from South Africa.

The Biden government will temporarily ban visitors from South Africa and seven other South African nations starting Monday, less than a month after lifting pandemic rules that banned visitors from South Africa, the UK and more than 30 other countries.

Both Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, the only U.S. airlines with non-stop service to South Africa, announced on Friday that they would not change their flight schedules.

Israel banned foreign visitors for two weeks under one of the strictest new rules. Japan followed with a similar caveat as of Tuesday. The UK requires travelers to do a PCR test on arrival from abroad and self-isolate until they get a negative result.

Concerns about the variant and new travel restrictions on Friday drove airline and aerospace stocks down, despite up slightly in pre-trading on Monday.

“There is still a lot to learn about the variant and how people will react to travel as a result, but we believe stocks will be affected by volatility until more is known,” wrote MKM Partners airline analyst Conor Cunningham. in a note on Sunday.

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