The problems in international travel will continue after the Christmas weekend. Thousands of travellers were told that their flights would not take place on Monday. Airlines cancelled about 1,100 flights, according to figures from the FlightAware website.
In recent days, some 8300 other flights had already been cancelled in one of the busiest times of the year. In addition, some airlines have indicated that staff shortages have arisen as the omikron variant of the coronavirus is spreading rapidly worldwide. As a result, employees become infected or are quarantined.
The cancelled flights are a small part of the total number of worldwide air trips per day, but they come at a difficult time. Many people travel at the end of the year to visit friends and family.
The spread of the virus around the holidays also causes nuisance at sea. US authorities are monitoring about 60 cruise ships for outbreaks on board. The Washington Post newspaper reports that due to concerns about the virus, some of the huge vessels were unable to dock on the Antillean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.
This included the ship Carnival Freedom, which was unable to go to Bonaire. Several passengers said they avoided public areas on the ship as much as possible during the Christmas season as a precaution. A woman on board compared her cruise to The Washington Post to “cruising around in a petri dish,” a dish in which scientists can grow bacteria.