Large and small airlines alike are finding it increasing difficult to crew flights over the Christmas holiday and into the New Year period with many call outs at airlines. Hundreds of crew at UA, BA, DL, LH and others are testing positive for covid and crew scheduling and the airlines cannot keep pace with the amount of callouts. Industry analysts expect possible operational meltdowns are to come.

LH
"Lufthansa is grappling with acute crew bottlenecks on long-haul routes before the holidays. The airline has several flights canceled in the USA. There are no Lufthansa pilots on the Frankfurt A330 / A340 fleet - the airline registers an "extremely high sick rate."

UA, DL
"As of 7:30 p.m. ET, Delta Air Lines has canceled 84 flights on Christmas Day while United Airlines has canceled 27. More flights have been canceled on Christmas Eve: 121 from United and 79 from Delta."

AS
"Alaska Air to cancel hundreds of flights on Christmas Eve. Several flights in an out of have been impacted. Information coming in now..."

https://news.yahoo.com/christmas-flight ... 51327.html
https://twitter.com/search?q=crew%20luf ... ery&f=live
https://twitter.com/RyanKIRO7/status/14 ... 6971045889

Omicron spreads like crazy on airplanes it appears, unlike previous variants.

Detroit313 wrote:

Omicron spreads like crazy on airplanes it appears, unlike previous variants.

Folks aren't catching it on airplanes. The vast majority are catching it outside of work and then calling in sick with a positive test.

Look at every other industry out there now its going nuts.
I mean look at the NHL and NFL and what they are doing.

Its becoming a joke now, I know of about 10 people in my orbit who have tested positive in the past week.

Its COVID / Omnicron...... you go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200....10 day quarentine for you.

The next 1-2 weeks are going to be an epic CF in the industry.....you heard it here first.

JetBlue just sent out an email offering 300% pay for inflight to pick up the holidays. High number of call outs with COVID positive people, and very short of reserve crew. It’s shaping up to be a mess.

Today was the first time in the entire pandemic where it feels like half my friends all got simultaneous positive results, myself included. I was en route to family in Ohio and turned around, then *their* tests all came back positive as well. Omicron seems to be living up to the hype with it's speed.

Fair amount of cancellations at DL and UA today with significant delays across the legacies. I know at CLT flights on E concourse don't even have enough workers to park the airplanes.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/

asuflyer wrote:

AS
"Alaska Air to cancel hundreds of flights on Christmas Eve. Several flights in an out of have been impacted. Information coming in now..."

https://news.yahoo.com/christmas-flight ... 51327.html
https://twitter.com/search?q=crew%20luf ... ery&f=live
https://twitter.com/RyanKIRO7/status/14 ... 6971045889

Alaska literally only operates hundreds of flights a day. Average about 600 mainline flights a day with a few hundred more on Horizon. In any case, today there are less than 20 cancelled flights. While Omicron is definitely impacting staffing at every airline, this is a bit sensationalist.
Also, Alaska has offered holiday bonuses for working between 12/23 and 1/2 to Flight Attendants. That seems to have helped quite a bit with any open flying...

Cdc just dropped return to work period for health care workers. All industries are gonna have to adjust.

Going to happen to ATC soon. Already noticing a decent amount of places with staffing triggers.

ATCJesus wrote:

Going to happen to ATC soon. Already noticing a decent amount of places with staffing triggers.

Yep. If not positives from controllers, then it's quarantining due to close contact. I suspect it's the same among pilots and cabin crew, not to mention everyone else that makes the industry tick. I'm suspecting that tomorrow's cancelations are the tip of the iceberg and are probably a picture of what's to come over the next few weeks.

Detroit313 wrote:

Omicron spreads like crazy on airplanes it appears, unlike previous variants.

I dont think it's on airplanes. I think its bars, hotel shuttle buses with no airflow, tsa security, bathrooms. It's all places with bad or not airflow and people parents wearing masks or just wearing them for show and not properly.

My DL flight from RIC to MSP on my way to DEN was canceled on the 24th with only a days notice and they rerouted me through DTW instead. I figured it was some weather coming in and they wanted to divert flights to other hubs but I guess once it again it was COVID.

asuflyer wrote:

Large and small airlines alike are finding it increasing difficult to crew flights over the Christmas holiday and into the New Year period with many call outs at airlines. Hundreds of crew at UA, BA, DL, LH and others are testing positive for covid and crew scheduling and the airlines cannot keep pace with the amount of callouts. Industry analysts expect possible operational meltdowns are to come.

LH
"Lufthansa is grappling with acute crew bottlenecks on long-haul routes before the holidays. The airline has several flights canceled in the USA. There are no Lufthansa pilots on the Frankfurt A330 / A340 fleet - the airline registers an "extremely high sick rate."

UA, DL
"As of 7:30 p.m. ET, Delta Air Lines has canceled 84 flights on Christmas Day while United Airlines has canceled 27. More flights have been canceled on Christmas Eve: 121 from United and 79 from Delta."

AS
"Alaska Air to cancel hundreds of flights on Christmas Eve. Several flights in an out of have been impacted. Information coming in now..."

https://news.yahoo.com/christmas-flight ... 51327.html
https://twitter.com/search?q=crew%20luf ... ery&f=live
https://twitter.com/RyanKIRO7/status/14 ... 6971045889

According to FlightAware, AS only cancelled 20 flights on 12-23 and as of right now has ZERO flights cancelled on 12-24

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

[*]

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

Southwest has 0 canceled for today so far…. They also offered crews 150% pay for every trip between 12/17-1/4 plus 300% on holidays. Money works up to a point though, if omicron spreads super fast like this it will show up at American and Southwest too, just maybe not as severe of operational impact.

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They're up to 8, but that's still pretty far off from United's 169 (9% of the schedule), Delta's 124 (6%), or JetBlue's 53 (5%) as of 1245Z.

In this case though, I'm not sure money is an appropriate driver when pilots or flight attendants may either have tested positive for coronavirus or be experiencing covid symptoms. Completion rate is great, but having healthy crew operating those flights is equally important.

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

The main reason is basically having to bribe your employees with up to 300% bonus pay, you have to wonder how many AA employees are foregoing tests, flying positive, for that extra loot. I bet the number is quite high and without that incentive, AA would once again, be leading the pack...in a bad way

And now apparently B6 is offering up to 300% in overtime money. So, your sitting in your hotel room, you don't feel quite well, but you know that you can make a few extra grand by picking up trips so what do you do? You forgo the COVID testing in turn making yourself more money. Not exactly ethical by any standards.

atcsundevil wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They're up to 8, but that's still pretty far off from United's 169 (9% of the schedule), Delta's 124 (6%), or JetBlue's 53 (5%) as of 1245Z.

In this case though, I'm not sure money is an appropriate driver when pilots or flight attendants may either have tested positive for coronavirus or be experiencing covid symptoms. Completion rate is great, but having healthy crew operating those flights is equally important.

Oh please. The 300 percent encourages flight attendants who would otherwise be off to pick up additional flying to make up for those who are sick.

Nobody is intentionally going to work sick.

Also affecting operations here in Australia, a lot of flight cancellations today across VA, QF & JQ due to flight crew & other staff having to quarantine. Sydney is getting smashed with Omicron, while here in Melbourne, schools have been especially hard hit in the last few weeks. Not sure of the situation elsewhere, but if you're a 'close contact', which basically means a household member, or someone you've spent at least 4 hours with, you also have to quarantine for 7 days. A lot of people here in MEL are also being pinged for having visited an exposure site, so must submit to a PCR test, and quarantine until you get a negative result. Normally 24 hours or so, but in the last few days it's been up to 72 hours with the increased testing demand.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/comp ... 59k14.html

twoaislesforme wrote:

The main reason is basically having to bribe your employees with up to 300% bonus pay, you have to wonder how many AA employees are foregoing tests, flying positive, for that extra loot. I bet the number is quite high and without that incentive, AA would once again, be leading the pack...in a bad way

So it is your belief that the airlines are not doing antigen test which give results almost immediately?
Based on the speed of the rapid testing, the industry could have all pax tested before they board a flight, if positive then have them do a PCR and come back in two days if negative.

par13del wrote:

twoaislesforme wrote:

The main reason is basically having to bribe your employees with up to 300% bonus pay, you have to wonder how many AA employees are foregoing tests, flying positive, for that extra loot. I bet the number is quite high and without that incentive, AA would once again, be leading the pack...in a bad way

So it is your belief that the airlines are not doing antigen test which give results almost immediately?
Based on the speed of the rapid testing, the industry could have all pax tested before they board a flight, if positive then have them do a PCR and come back in two days if negative.

So its your belief that you can rapid test/PCR an entire 737, 747,757, 767, 777 etc full of pax/crew, every day, every airline, every airport and every flight, right before boarding and planes would depart and land on time? Have you any idea the kind of chaos that would cause?

As for AA, its very suspect that all of a sudden, after years and years of being one of the worst at cancelling flights and delaying flights, that just like that, they are better than everyone else; while at the same time, they offer up to 300% more pay to employees. To me that is very suspect.

twoaislesforme wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

The main reason is basically having to bribe your employees with up to 300% bonus pay, you have to wonder how many AA employees are foregoing tests, flying positive, for that extra loot. I bet the number is quite high and without that incentive, AA would once again, be leading the pack...in a bad way

And now apparently B6 is offering up to 300% in overtime money. So, your sitting in your hotel room, you don't feel quite well, but you know that you can make a few extra grand by picking up trips so what do you do? You forgo the COVID testing in turn making yourself more money. Not exactly ethical by any standards.

Most human behavior can be predicted fairly well when incentives are considered. I don’t know about you, but besides liking my job, I am highly motivated to get out of bed and go to work because it pays the bills. When extra pay is offered, I will sometimes take advantage of it. I have worked many holidays because of the extra pay. If you were an airline manager, and were faced with high levels of absenteeism on particular holidays, how would you fix it? Your scenario featuring hordes of Covid positive employees being bribed to work while sick is overly simplistic, and ignores the fact that it is mostly just a case of workers responding positively to an incentive.

Josh76040 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They're up to 8, but that's still pretty far off from United's 169 (9% of the schedule), Delta's 124 (6%), or JetBlue's 53 (5%) as of 1245Z.

In this case though, I'm not sure money is an appropriate driver when pilots or flight attendants may either have tested positive for coronavirus or be experiencing covid symptoms. Completion rate is great, but having healthy crew operating those flights is equally important.

Oh please. The 300 percent encourages flight attendants who would otherwise be off to pick up additional flying to make up for those who are sick.

Nobody is intentionally going to work sick.

They are absolutely flying sick. Pilots too. If you call in sick any time during the month of December then you lose the overtime. You should hear the hacking, sneezing and coughing going on. “Must be my allergies “.

Airbuser wrote:

Josh76040 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

They're up to 8, but that's still pretty far off from United's 169 (9% of the schedule), Delta's 124 (6%), or JetBlue's 53 (5%) as of 1245Z.

In this case though, I'm not sure money is an appropriate driver when pilots or flight attendants may either have tested positive for coronavirus or be experiencing covid symptoms. Completion rate is great, but having healthy crew operating those flights is equally important.

Oh please. The 300 percent encourages flight attendants who would otherwise be off to pick up additional flying to make up for those who are sick.

Nobody is intentionally going to work sick.

They are absolutely flying sick. Pilots too. If you call in sick any time during the month of December then you lose the overtime. You should hear the hacking, sneezing and coughing going on. “Must be my allergies “.

I think this is right. But doesn’t the same thing happen every winter due to colds and the flu? Omicron causes similarly minor symptoms among a very high percentage of vaccinated people it infects, so I’m not sure that this is any more dangerous than what goes on every winter.

Josh76040 wrote:

Nobody is intentionally going to work sick.

Yes, they are. Lol. That has always been the case when events created sudden huge opportunities for income, except now there is a pandemic and people are way more likely to be sick. Seen it in flight ops, airport ops, ect my whole life. You seriously have never heard a crew member say, "I should have called off the trip, but I need the money"? I say that assuming you are in the relevant part of the aviation world because of your response, not that I'd expect most people would have heard that, lol.

I personally know people at several airlines (F/As and pilots) who have gone to work sick in recent weeks to take advantage of bonuses. And some of them never got COVID tested because they "didn't want to know"...again because of money LOL.

Will it staff the flights? Probably. Will it make people with COVID lie and come to work? Yeah, some.

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They’re up to 10 cancellations and 98 delays.

Cubsrule wrote:

Airbuser wrote:

Josh76040 wrote:

Oh please. The 300 percent encourages flight attendants who would otherwise be off to pick up additional flying to make up for those who are sick.

Nobody is intentionally going to work sick.

They are absolutely flying sick. Pilots too. If you call in sick any time during the month of December then you lose the overtime. You should hear the hacking, sneezing and coughing going on. “Must be my allergies “.

I think this is right. But doesn’t the same thing happen every winter due to colds and the flu? Omicron causes similarly minor symptoms among a very high percentage of vaccinated people it infects, so I’m not sure that this is any more dangerous than what goes on every winter.

Yes, the same thing happens with other illnesses. However, it is generally not a good idea to make your customers and co-workers sick.

Also in this time of boarder restrictions and testing to try to limit spread it is generally a bad idea to have a group of works who are constantly traveling, exempt from some of the quarantine/testing requirements basically work sick and spread this. If in the US they are paying out these types of bonuses, I think Canada (and most other countries) need to take a hard line on flight crew. No special exemptions from vaccination, testing and quarantine requirements.

atcsundevil wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They're up to 8, but that's still pretty far off from United's 169 (9% of the schedule), Delta's 124 (6%), or JetBlue's 53 (5%) as of 1245Z.

In this case though, I'm not sure money is an appropriate driver when pilots or flight attendants may either have tested positive for coronavirus or be experiencing covid symptoms. Completion rate is great, but having healthy crew operating those flights is equally important.

Perhaps, but Delta & UA have extra pay incentives that they're very likely using right now as well that are part of their contracts or just company Policy (Delta Flight attendants). It's a bit unfair for anyone on this thread to assume AA is the only company incentivizing employees to pick up trips right now.

Josh76040 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They're up to 8, but that's still pretty far off from United's 169 (9% of the schedule), Delta's 124 (6%), or JetBlue's 53 (5%) as of 1245Z.

In this case though, I'm not sure money is an appropriate driver when pilots or flight attendants may either have tested positive for coronavirus or be experiencing covid symptoms. Completion rate is great, but having healthy crew operating those flights is equally important.

Oh please. The 300 percent encourages flight attendants who would otherwise be off to pick up additional flying to make up for those who are sick.

Nobody is intentionally going to work sick.

Oh yes they do. At the beginning of the pandemic when we the attendance program was suspended and you could go home sick without penalty people were still coming into work hacking and coughing and sneezing just to come in on overtime. People are selfish and irresponsible when it comes to money. They will willingly put others at risk just for extra money for themselves.

dfwfanboy wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They're up to 8, but that's still pretty far off from United's 169 (9% of the schedule), Delta's 124 (6%), or JetBlue's 53 (5%) as of 1245Z.

In this case though, I'm not sure money is an appropriate driver when pilots or flight attendants may either have tested positive for coronavirus or be experiencing covid symptoms. Completion rate is great, but having healthy crew operating those flights is equally important.

Perhaps, but Delta & UA have extra pay incentives that they're very likely using right now as well that are part of their contracts or just company Policy (Delta Flight attendants). It's a bit unfair for anyone on this thread to assume AA is the only company incentivizing employees to pick up trips right now.

I don't think people are saying AA is the only company incentivizing employees to pick up trips. But people are saying that the way AA is incentivizing employees to not call in sick is very likely to result in a significant number of employees flying sick.

Over 3,000 cancellations for Friday (Christmas Eve) and Saturday globally. This is not just a US problem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/us/c ... icron.html

Germany-based Lufthansa said Friday that it was canceling a dozen long-haul transatlantic flights over the Christmas holiday period because of a “massive rise” in sick leave among pilots. The cancellations on flights to Houston, Boston and Washington come despite a “large buffer” of additional staff for the period.



https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-w ... utType=amp

One hopes for a quick wave. However in certain areas, hospitalizations haven't recovered from Delta and any additional Omicron burden is too much, in my opinion:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/curr ... RA~ITA~ESP


Winter has come.
Lightsaber

Please post sources for factual posts. Non-aviation posts will be deleted. The topic is flight cancellations during this holiday due to covid.

Flflyer83 wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

American Airlines is running a phenomenal operation compared to Delta, United, Jetblue, Alaska, Southwest. Just 1 cancellation today so far and no delays.

Paying the flight attendants 300% was very successful.

They’re up to 10 cancellations and 98 delays.

I'm on one of the delays, which might end up being a cancelation. But, it's mechanical.

Looks like American is trying to learn from their past mistakes. How well a company is run is not how efficient they are when everything is going well, it's how well they do when there are upsets in the system and how well the company reacts to them. Some companies are proactive while others are reactive. This isn't anyone's first rodeo and I expect these carriers to be able to do better than just throw up their hands and cancel flight. We've seen this over and over again and every time it's up to the customers and employees to suck it up. And just deal with it.

Clipper73 wrote:

Looks like American is trying to learn from their past mistakes. How well a company is run is not how efficient they are when everything is going well, it's how well they do when there are upsets in the system and how well the company reacts to them. Some companies are proactive while others are reactive. This isn't anyone's first rodeo and I expect these carriers to be able to do better than just throw up their hands and cancel flight. We've seen this over and over again and every time it's up to the customers and employees to suck it up. And just deal with it.

Well at least in UA's case, a majority of the cancelations are proactive to accommodate as many pax as possible. Latest stat I've seen internally is that over 95% are still able to reach their intended destination on same day.

0newair0 wrote:

Detroit313 wrote:

Omicron spreads like crazy on airplanes it appears, unlike previous variants.

Folks aren't catching it on airplanes. The vast majority are catching it outside of work and then calling in sick with a positive test.

In fairness, the poster did not specifically say it referred to crew. Equally, it is very hard to imagine how the 'vast majority' crew member with it all only got it outside work, and that is something you wouldn't know you comment on.

twoaislesforme wrote:

par13del wrote:

twoaislesforme wrote:

The main reason is basically having to bribe your employees with up to 300% bonus pay, you have to wonder how many AA employees are foregoing tests, flying positive, for that extra loot. I bet the number is quite high and without that incentive, AA would once again, be leading the pack...in a bad way

So it is your belief that the airlines are not doing antigen test which give results almost immediately?
Based on the speed of the rapid testing, the industry could have all pax tested before they board a flight, if positive then have them do a PCR and come back in two days if negative.

As for AA, its very suspect that all of a sudden, after years and years of being one of the worst at cancelling flights and delaying flights, that just like that, they are better than everyone else; while at the same time, they offer up to 300% more pay to employees. To me that is very suspect.

Well you know what they say about getting to Carnegie Hall.

Looks like DL cancelled a large number of widebody flights from SEA along with their HNL and OGG flights today. Bummer for people who were planning to head to Hawaii for Christmas. I also noticed that DL had a diversion/turn back to SEA on DL 287 on the 22DEC... after they had reached Russia. Long flight to nowhere.

ASMVPGOLD wrote:

Looks like DL cancelled a large number of widebody flights from SEA along with their HNL and OGG flights today. Bummer for people who were planning to head to Hawaii for Christmas. I also noticed that DL had a diversion/turn back to SEA on DL 287 on the 22DEC... after they had reached Russia. Long flight to nowhere.

I wonder if delta was able to get everyone on to Hawaiian. Who also has a lot of capacity out of SEA

32andBelow wrote:

Cdc just dropped return to work period for health care workers. All industries are gonna have to adjust.

Health care workers are a specific situation: They have the highest vaccination rates of just about any workforce, and get over COVID fairly quickly. I was on the CDC call last Saturday and many of them were expressing the sentiment that a 10 day quarantine for what amounts to a 1-2 day mild sickness is going to cause staffing issues, especially when everyone else is getting sick.

People don't have to travel. They do need medical care. The current travel situation is an abused luxury during a pandemic.

Listen we’ve been dealing with Covid for two years… I really think a lot of this is overworked and underpaid employees taking the holiday at home with their family.

If it is, good for them

N328KF wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

Cdc just dropped return to work period for health care workers. All industries are gonna have to adjust.

Health care workers are a specific situation: They have the highest vaccination rates of just about any workforce, and get over COVID fairly quickly. I was on the CDC call last Saturday and many of them were expressing the sentiment that a 10 day quarantine for what amounts to a 1-2 day mild sickness is going to cause staffing issues, especially when everyone else is getting sick.

People don't have to travel. They do need medical care. The current travel situation is an abused luxury during a pandemic.

If it’s mild for a pilot they should be able to come back. It’s just time to adjust the periods since people have some immunity now. Negative test and 2 days seems to be used in a Lot of other places

I think every single airline is facing a major challenge right now. This virus isn't playing around. It's crazy how many people I know that have gotten this in the last few weeks. Sadly, I know I am just a sitting duck, and I am bound to get it unfortunately.

A.netters!! Please, do all you can to protect yourselves. Most importantly, I hope each and every one of you have an amazing holiday.

jfklganyc wrote:

Listen we’ve been dealing with Covid for two years… I really think a lot of this is overworked and underpaid employees taking the holiday at home with their family.

If it is, good for them

The "overworked" is a relatively recent phenomena. During the worst of COVID, including last Christmas, most were not working/furloughed, airports were quiet and they had plenty of holiday time with their families.

I never understand airline employees, who accepted a job knowing it involved working holidays, weekends, etc. Some are so surprised that they need to work these periods and call out. This leaves the more conscientious employees working short and harder. Vicious cycle.

IFlyOff wrote:

jfklganyc wrote:

Listen we’ve been dealing with Covid for two years… I really think a lot of this is overworked and underpaid employees taking the holiday at home with their family.

If it is, good for them

The "overworked" is a relatively recent phenomena. During the worst of COVID, including last Christmas, most were not working/furloughed, airports were quiet and they had plenty of holiday time with their families.

I never understand airline employees, who accepted a job knowing it involved working holidays, weekends, etc. Some are so surprised that they need to work these periods and call out. This leaves the more conscientious employees working short and harder. Vicious cycle.

I think this year it’s so easy to call out sick cus you won’t get singled out or punished. You just blend in with everyone else that’s actually sick. Then on top of that others don’t want to work short so they call out sick too

I recently had a DEN-ORD leg canceled on the 24th. I was rerouted through EWR.

jfklganyc wrote:

Listen we’ve been dealing with Covid for two years… I really think a lot of this is overworked and underpaid employees taking the holiday at home with their family.

If it is, good for them

Sure, people do call in sick when they are not sick but that happens on all holidays and is not the cause of what's going on now. COVID is absolutely raging through these airlines and positive tests prove that.

The good news is that the most severe symptom seems to be a mild fever. Problem is that these workers are now out for 10 days even when they feel 100% better on day 3.

32andBelow wrote:

IFlyOff wrote:

jfklganyc wrote:

Listen we’ve been dealing with Covid for two years… I really think a lot of this is overworked and underpaid employees taking the holiday at home with their family.

If it is, good for them

The "overworked" is a relatively recent phenomena. During the worst of COVID, including last Christmas, most were not working/furloughed, airports were quiet and they had plenty of holiday time with their families.

I never understand airline employees, who accepted a job knowing it involved working holidays, weekends, etc. Some are so surprised that they need to work these periods and call out. This leaves the more conscientious employees working short and harder. Vicious cycle.

I think this year it’s so easy to call out sick cus you won’t get singled out or punished. You just blend in with everyone else that’s actually sick. Then on top of that others don’t want to work short so they call out sick too

I just know at my airline, since the middle of the summer the flight attendants have been unable to call out without punitive action from Friday to Monday. Mind you, We are in the middle of a pandemic. They were actually giving an incentive to work sick.

You don’t treat people like that.

Now they have their chance to call out with the cover of the covid surge…and they will…400 so far today

Isn't UA the most vaccinated major carrier in the US it seems odd that they would be disproportionately harmed by rising Omicron cases. Common Sense would make you think they would be the most insulated from Covid outbreaks.