JetBlue Airways is cutting more than 1,280 flights starting Thursday through Jan. 13 in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 cases among crew members, the airline confirmed to Spectrum News.

What You Need To Know

  • JetBlue Airways is cutting more than 1,280 flights starting Thursday through Jan. 13 in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 cases, the airline confirmed to Spectrum News

  • Airlines have canceled thousands of flights dating back to Christmas Eve as airlines struggle with the COVID-19 surge

  • More than 1,000 flights within, into, or out of the United States have been canceled already Thursday, according to FlightAware

  • According to CNBC, JetBlue department leaders called this past week “one of our most difficult operating periods during the pandemic” in a note to staff on Tuesday

The company told Spectrum News that they have "proactively reduced" their schedule "by approximately 1280 flights between Dec. 30 and Jan. 13."

"Like many businesses and organizations, we have seen a surge in the number of sick calls from Omicron," the airline told Spectrum News. "We entered the holiday season with the highest staffing levels we've had since the pandemic began and are using all resources available to cover our staffing needs. To give our customers give as much notice possible to make alternate plans and reaccommodate them on other flights, we are proactively reducing our schedule through January 13."

The move comes as hundreds of flights have been delayed or canceled in the last several days, largely due to the coronavirus surge driven by the highly contagious omicron variant. More than 1,000 flights within, into, or out of the United States have been canceled already Thursday, according to FlightAware. Of that figure, 175 are from JetBlue, 17% of its scheduled flights.

JetBlue said that they expect that the new COVID isolation guidelines from the CDC "should help get crewmembers back to work sooner."

"We expect the number of COVID cases in the northeast – where most of our crew members are based – to continue to surge for the next week or two," a spokesperson for the airline said in a statement to Spectrum News. "This means there is a high likelihood of additional cancellations until case counts start to come down.”

"We have 22,000 incredible crewmembers, many of whom are stepping up and volunteering to work additional hours to get our customers where they need to go," a spokesperson for the airline said, adding that they are taking "every step possible to minimize disruption from omicron," including deploying leaders and managers to staff frontline operations if they're trained to do so and offering additional incentives for crew to pick up additional shifts if they're not already scheduled.

According to CNBC, JetBlue department leaders called this past week “one of our most difficult operating periods during the pandemic” in a note to staff on Tuesday.

“The exponential growth in Omicron cases over just a couple of days is at a level that no one could reasonably prepare for,” the leaders wrote, per CNBC.

JetBlue is far from the only airline impacted — Per FlightAware, Alaska Airlines canceled 14% of its flights (95) on Thursday, WestJet canceled 19% (49) and Allegiant canceled 18% (89), and Chicago-based United Airlines canceled 190 flights, or 8% of its scheduled flights Thursday.

Thousands of flights have been canceled dating back to Christmas Eve as airlines struggle with the COVID-19 surge, leading to sick calls from crews, as well as wicked weather impacting parts of the country.

The issues are not just limited to flights: New York’s subway system has been impacted by staffing shortages as well.

“Like everyone in New York, we’ve been affected by the COVID surge,” the Metro Transit Authority wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “We’re running as much train service as we can with the operators we have available.”

The B, Z and W subway lines were suspended on Thursday in New York, with additional lines modified to provide additional services.