Covid: Travel chaos spills over into the new week

There were more Covid-related flights around the world this week, ending a miserable holiday season for thousands of people.

According to the tracking website FlightAware, more than 1,400 flights were suspended on Monday, with destinations in China and the U.S. the hardest hit.

U.S. airlines said the outage was due to a positive test or crew isolation.

Hong Kong banned all Korean Air flights to South Korea for two weeks following positive events on multiple arrivals.

In total, more than 8,000 flights were suspended over the long Christmas weekend starting Friday.

Although the number of cancellations is only a fraction of the total, it is higher than usual and occurs in a year when many people travel to spend time with family and friends.

In a separate development, U.S. authorities have monitored dozens of shipping lanes affected by Covid cases while sailing in the country's waters. As a result, the AFP news agency reported some reports being denied access to Caribbean ports.

Reported Covid cases are rising sharply worldwide, mainly driven by the Omicron variant. Despite initial findings that Omicron is milder than other coronavirus variants, scientists are concerned about the many infections being reported.

According to FlightAware, most of the flights canceled on Monday were from Chinese companies. These include China Eastern, which canceled 368 flights, and Air China, which canceled 141 flights.

Airports in Beijing and Shanghai appeared to be the most brutal hit, with a combined total of nearly 300 cancellations. Chinese authorities have not commented on this.

An airport in the Chinese city of Xi'an is also on the list. More than 13 million people in the town were recently ordered to stay at home while authorities there tried to fight the Covid outbreak.

United warned last week that the surge in Omicron cases "is having a direct impact on our flight crew and the people running our operations," as many employees are forced to self-isolate after coming into contact with those infected. Omicron is the dominant variety in the United States today.

But hard times are also a factor. A blanket of snow delayed flights and blocked roads in western Washington on Sunday, adding to travel chaos.