27,000 US Flights Cancelled Since Christmas Eve (msn.com) 90
Today in airports around the world, 3,189 flights were cancelled, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. And
5,155 more flights were cancelled yesterday (with another 1,345 flights also already cancelled for tomorrow).
Even in the U.S., the Washington Post reports on "an epic travel meltdown in its third week that has forced the cancellation of more than 27,000 flights since the first signs of trouble on Christmas Eve," again citing figures from FlightAware.
By January 1st the number of cancelled U.S. flights just since Christmas Eve was already at 12,000 — and now the Post reports things still haven't gotten any better: A triple whammy of robust demand for holiday travel, staffing shortages triggered by a surge in coronavirus cases and bouts of wintry weather at airline hubs has ushered in one of the worst periods for air travelers in years. More than two weeks later, the surge in daily flight cancellations has shown no signs of abating: Some airlines have announced schedule cuts through the end of the month as they fight to recover...
While the number of scrubbed flights has been the biggest obstacle for travelers, it's not the only disruption. About one-third of flights nationwide that have taken off in the past two weeks have been late, with the average delay topping 50 minutes on some days, according to FlightAware. Then there are the hundreds of suitcases and bags still to be claimed at airports — some that didn't follow passengers onto connecting flights; others that were lost when passengers were rerouted through different airports after their original flights were canceled...
Since the start of the pandemic, about 50,000 airline employees have left the industry through retirements or voluntary buyouts. When passenger demand began ramping up last spring, airlines scrambled to bring back workers. But a tight job market made recruiting more difficult, and gaps remain even as thousands of new employees have been hired.
Even in the U.S., the Washington Post reports on "an epic travel meltdown in its third week that has forced the cancellation of more than 27,000 flights since the first signs of trouble on Christmas Eve," again citing figures from FlightAware.
By January 1st the number of cancelled U.S. flights just since Christmas Eve was already at 12,000 — and now the Post reports things still haven't gotten any better: A triple whammy of robust demand for holiday travel, staffing shortages triggered by a surge in coronavirus cases and bouts of wintry weather at airline hubs has ushered in one of the worst periods for air travelers in years. More than two weeks later, the surge in daily flight cancellations has shown no signs of abating: Some airlines have announced schedule cuts through the end of the month as they fight to recover...
While the number of scrubbed flights has been the biggest obstacle for travelers, it's not the only disruption. About one-third of flights nationwide that have taken off in the past two weeks have been late, with the average delay topping 50 minutes on some days, according to FlightAware. Then there are the hundreds of suitcases and bags still to be claimed at airports — some that didn't follow passengers onto connecting flights; others that were lost when passengers were rerouted through different airports after their original flights were canceled...
Since the start of the pandemic, about 50,000 airline employees have left the industry through retirements or voluntary buyouts. When passenger demand began ramping up last spring, airlines scrambled to bring back workers. But a tight job market made recruiting more difficult, and gaps remain even as thousands of new employees have been hired.
So, who wants to be the punching bag? (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't blame flight attendants for quitting their jobs en masse... I mean, who wants to be the punching bag that is tasked with going around enforcing infuriating COVID mask rules?
We need to roll back all the COVID nonsense. Omicron is here and it's extremely mild. Everybody needs to go out and get some fresh air. Once we're all innoculated, we'll finally have that herd immunity that the vaccines failed to actually deliver.
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If we were actually taking Covid prevention seriously we would have banned eating and drinking on flights back in March 2020. For long international flights they could distribute liquid nutrition with a straw that can be slipped beneath someone's mask so as to allow them to consume nourishment without removing the mask.
But we didn't do that because money, which reinforces the idea that "Covid control" policies are really about controlling people.
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I want peanuts now. Shame on you!
Re:So, who wants to be the punching bag? (Score:5, Informative)
That's the potential for another 701 million deaths in the U.S. alone
THAT would be an interesting statistic, given that it's double the current population.
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"Fact checkers" are the modern day Ministry of Truth.
Re:So, who wants to be the punching bag? (Score:5, Informative)
That's the potential for another 701 million deaths in the U.S. alone
THAT would be an interesting statistic, given that it's double the current population.
Crap. I meant 701 thousand.
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I accept and snort at your numerical glitch.. but also ask
current deaths in the USA total 836k
if it's 1/6th as deadly, then would it not be a number close to 1/6th of 836k?
what's the math of your corrected 701 thousand?
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It is much more infectious with the potential to fill up hospitals. Once the hospitals are full, the fatality rate goes up as well as people die of unrelated things due to no room in the hospital.
It seems to be about half as likely to put someone in hospital if that someone is unvaccinated, vaccinated quite a while ago or previously infected quite a while ago with quite a while being 6+ months.
I talked to someone outside for a few minutes, they mentioned they were starting to get a cold and I left. 4 days l
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I accept and snort at your numerical glitch.. but also ask
current deaths in the USA total 836k
if it's 1/6th as deadly, then would it not be a number close to 1/6th of 836k?
what's the math of your corrected 701 thousand?
Only about 16% of the U.S. has gotten COVID so far (or at least that's the number of known cases). The math was something along the lines of (836k * 84) / (16 * 6), but with slightly more precise numbers.
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They're good for business, your government will never do what is needed to stop them from coming in, namely bust any business caught hiring illegals. Be so easy, immigration people just go to Home Depot and pretend to be illegals and bust anyone who hires them without properly checking their paper work. Afterwards they could start checking obvious businesses and bust the people hiring them along with the illegals.
As long as there is the promise of lots of work, a fence won't stop them.
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This is the best explanation I've ever seen regarding the illegal immigration situation in the US. It's precisely why nothing will ever change. Neither political party truly wants it to change.
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The other requirement is a replacement. Here in Canada, there is a tourist visa that allow some work, get young Australians, Europeans and such working the ski hills, other touristy stuff and things like orchid picking. We also import a lot of Central Americans on work visas, mostly for farms. They're flown in for 6 months or so, paid $15+ an hour, housed, I think medical is covered and then flown back home. Neighbour is a landscaper, he has a couple of Mexicans living with him and working for him. Someone
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That's the potential for another 701 million deaths in the U.S. alone
THAT would be an interesting statistic, given that it's double the current population.
Omicron is so nasty, it kills you, revives you then kills you again.
Then why are the CEOs (Score:2)
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It goes like this.
Mismanage an airline to the brink
Declare an emergency and lay off all of the real workers. Break a union or two along the way.
Use inside government connections to get a bailout.
Quietly reward all of the so called leaders whose greed created the problem.
Wait seven or so years.
Rinse, repeat.
US airlines are currently running a numbers game on the public. They are selling
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That'd be rather difficult considering that the population of the US was only 331,449,281 as of April 1, 2020. You might want to consider turning down the hysteria somewhat.
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I don't blame flight attendants for quitting their jobs en masse... I mean, who wants to be the punching bag that is tasked with going around enforcing infuriating COVID mask rules?
Fact: Flights are being cancelled because so many people on the flight crews are sick with COVID, not because of people quitting their jobs.
We need to roll back all the COVID nonsense. Omicron is here and it's extremely mild.
Fact: Thus far, it is looking like it is about 1/6th as deadly on a per-case basis. That's not "extremely mild".
The Omicron has differing mild/not mild status. People who did the third shot, it's not super bad. But a buddy who believed the virus was just the sniffles recently bought the farm from Omicron. A bit over 50 years old, and in good health.
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Even after the 3rd shot, it is still a nasty cold from my experience. Not going to hospital nasty but staying home ideally for a week, maybe 3 days if you push yourself, nasty.
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Even after the 3rd shot, it is still a nasty cold from my experience. Not going to hospital nasty but staying home ideally for a week, maybe 3 days if you push yourself, nasty.
That's what I've been hearing as well. I think that the virus mutating in this fashion is actually a good thing. I don't want to anthropomorphize, but a system we created where we can survive the variant, it's like we and the virus are learning to mostly co-exist.
Viruses like this come around every few years, like the Influenza ones. So we might have a smidgen of protection from the next time Covid visits.
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Yes, I think/hope that it will turn out to be a good thing. Just kind of pisses me off with the people saying it is extremely mild when it still seems to make the unvaccinated about half as likely to need hospitalization, even less likely to need ICU care, which is good and also making even the vaccinated sick enough to put some out of action for a week or whatever.
It seems bad enough that this wave, while hopefully the last one, is also going to be the worst just due to the number of infections. Hopefully
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I don't blame flight attendants for quitting their jobs en masse... I mean, who wants to be the punching bag that is tasked with going around enforcing infuriating COVID mask rules?
They've been punching bags long before you ever heard the word COVID. Remember the Jetblue flight attendant hero that popped the slid, grabbed a beer & slid down out of aircraft & out of that insane job?
Omicron is here and it's extremely mild.
So mild that is packing our hospitals.
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We need to roll back all the COVID nonsense. Omicron is here and it's extremely mild.
Had you listened to your betters instead of "rolling back the nonsense", omicron wouldn't even exist right now.
That covid wasn't eradicated is completely your doing.
Once we're all innoculated, we'll finally have that herd immunity that the vaccines failed to actually deliver.
They didn't fail anything.
Vaccines only work if you get them!
Vaccines only fail if you get them and then they don't protect you. Step one is a requirement for step 2.
Nice (Score:2)
Usually it takes a volcano with an unpronounceable name to do that.
Not Much Sympathy (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand people may have legitimate reasons for needing to travel, but to a large degree I feel unsympathetic towards people who decide to travel during a global pandemic and then run into problems.
I'm currently looking out my window at falling snow. Sure, I would love to fly down to Mexico for some sand and sun, but I don't think it's either safe or ethical at this time.
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I would love to fly down to Mexico for some sand and sun, but I don't think it's either safe or ethical at this time.
Why not? The vaccines are extremely safe, effective, and not only that, they're free! Get jabbed, wear your mask, and show up extra early to get through the TSA full body scanner with time to spare -- you'll be fine.
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I could counter this by asking what makes you think that your being too much of a wuss to endure a few snowflakes would justify that energy use and environmental impact outside a pandemic.
I can see wanting to see other places and cultures but fleeing the weather seems as egoistical to me pandemic or no pandemic.
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I could counter this by asking what makes you think that your being too much of a wuss to endure a few snowflakes would justify that energy use and environmental impact outside a pandemic.
I can see wanting to see other places and cultures but fleeing the weather seems as egoistical to me pandemic or no pandemic.
Perhaps they wanted to follow on the heels of Raphael Cruz [bbc.com], one of this country's illustrious leaders.
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I can see wanting to see other places and cultures
And how would that justify the energy use and environmental impact? Because you are curious and uncultured so you think your traveling to some other place will be a benefit to all man kind? How is that not being just as egoistical as nuckfuts?
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I can see wanting to see other places and cultures
And how would that justify the energy use and environmental impact? Because you are curious and uncultured so you think your traveling to some other place will be a benefit to all man kind? How is that not being just as egoistical as nuckfuts?
Could be a case of not wanting to leave Mom's basement.
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How do you propose to get cultured without getting to know other cultures?
Personal growth at least is a gain... considering how few people these days seem to put any stock in that, I think it would be well worth the expenditure.
Just not wanting to look at snowflakes on the other hand...
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I could counter this by asking what makes you think that your being too much of a wuss to endure a few snowflakes would justify that energy use and environmental impact outside a pandemic.
I can see wanting to see other places and cultures but fleeing the weather seems as egoistical to me pandemic or no pandemic.
The problem is, we take vacations when we take vacations. Is there some reason that taking one in the Summer is environmentally evil? Or do you just want people to never leave their homes except to eat, and not own a car?
Canada in the Summer, used to go to Florida in the winter but no more, since the've gone off the deep end, with DeSantis representing Floridians thoughts.
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You can take vacations by going to a cabin in the woods 100 km from where you live.... you don't need to fly 1000 km.
Your comment about politics in that regard seems very ironic considering the topic of cultural enrichment has been brought up... Perhaps you might think a bit less of your vacation and rather more of bettering yourself.
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You can take vacations by going to a cabin in the woods 100 km from where you live.... you don't need to fly 1000 km.
You surely can. Sounds like fun too. But it's a big world, and I like to see a lot of things. It's a couple day drive to the Grand Canyon. Note - I stopped flying when they started treating their customers as the enemy. But Grand Canyon - cabin in the woods. At least one, probably twice, the Canyon is going to win.
My point is that if we start thinking of restricting people's vacation prospects because of fuel use - well, why stop there?
Vacations, whether that cabin in the woods, the Grand canyon, or wh
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eveyones fucking getting this dick for brains.
if you want to stay home and be scared of the world - great
stop telling others what they can do.
can;t hide for ever - its not going away
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How to spot a moron 101:
1. They have a vague idea of what capital letters mean.
2. They usually write vertically, pressing Enter key every few words, regardless whether it's needed or not.
3. Phrases longer than 10 words give them headaches.
4. They randomly eat period signs.
5. Apostrophes are easily confused with other punctuation marks.
6. "its" and "it's" are just the same word to them.
7. "forever" and "for ever" are just the same word to them.
8. They like cuss words so, so much.
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I've been couped up at my house for two years. TWO FUCKING YEARS. I've vaccinated, and boosted. I wear a mask while in public indoor spaces. I feel like I'm smart about the risks I accept.
I want to travel again. I've done my part. The lack of sympathy should be directed at those who are refusing to get vaccinated, not those that had been doing everything right and just want to get away for a week.
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I suppose you've visited every interesting place in a 300 mile radius from where you live?
Re: Not Much Sympathy (Score:2)
I'm a roller coaster enthusiast. There's only a few parks within 300 miles. I'd like to be able to visit other parks again.
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It's a perfectly good explanation.
The reason I asked is there are zounds of people complaining about difficulties traveling over large distances to visit this, that and the other, and I sometimes looked up various things they complain about, finding dozens of such areas to visit fairly close to them, which they have not visited or knew they existed.
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I suppose you've visited every interesting place in a 300 mile radius from where you live?
Seems like you need to write the war4peace allowable vacation guide. Or at least a radio or podcast where people call in to ask your permission on where to go on vacation.
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Maybe I should :)
Is there money to be made?
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Maybe I should :)
Is there money to be made?
We live in a world where some lady made a lot of money selling her farts - so you might be able to make a killing! hehe
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Sure, I would love to fly down to Mexico for some sand and sun, but I don't think it's either safe or ethical at this time.
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, the A/C was running, because I live in the south.
I live in a state with a climate that's not much different than Mexico's. It's overrated.
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Sure, I would love to fly down to Mexico for some sand and sun, but I don't think it's either safe or ethical at this time.
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, the A/C was running, because I live in the south.
I live in a state with a climate that's not much different than Mexico's. It's overrated.
One of the nice things about some mobility is that we can go where the weather suits our clothes. Florida in the winter is pretty nice. I was there twice in the summer, and that place is trying to kill you. Canada during the summer is usually really nice. Winter? well, we went to Winterlude in Ottawa once. I enjoyed it, but only for that day. PA is nice in the spring and fall. So I go where I feel like going. I don't fly any more though. Driving is cool though My vacation is more the journey than the dest
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I understand people may have legitimate reasons for needing to travel, but to a large degree I feel unsympathetic towards people who decide to travel during a global pandemic and then run into problems.
I would agree with you if this is about one of the countries that is still taking Covid seriously, but America? The country that have decided to "live with the virus" and have basically done away with what little pandemic responses they had so far, to the point now lots of people don't even bother to wear a mask in crowded places? I would say, what pandemic?
Didn't "living with the virus" meant exactly that? Go on living as per normal, right? As long as one is vaxxed, one should be fine to go travel for
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If learning to live with the virus means learning to live with the health service on the brink of collapse, many more people dying and huge long term health problems in the population then "living as before" would be learning to live with the virus.
A more pragmatic approach would be to accept that pretending the virus does not exist is idiotic and that things need to change perhaps for ever. That means vaccinations, mask wearing in many scenarios and less social interaction. Unfortunately there are a signif
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I understand people may have legitimate reasons for needing to travel, but to a large degree I feel unsympathetic towards people who decide to travel during a global pandemic and then run into problems.
I'm currently looking out my window at falling snow. Sure, I would love to fly down to Mexico for some sand and sun, but I don't think it's either safe or ethical at this time.
Just how long do you think people should wait to travel?
It's been over two years. At some point, we just have to live.
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They took a ton of government money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They took a ton of government money (Score:4, Informative)
The promise of not doing layoffs until October 1, 2020 [bbc.com], which they did.
A particular amount of aid covered a particular amount of time. Then the aid ended, and the time expired.
Now you apparently want to retroactively alter the deal, or else blame the airlines for Congressional inaction.
Nope. That's not the way any of this works.
They used contractors to do the layoffs (Score:2)
If we actually enforced labor law such that companies could not hire contractors who are de fac
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I already provided an article. But let's see... [propublica.org]
"The program has largely worked for employees of the major carriers like American and United, which inked their Payroll Support agreements with the Treasury in April. The big airlines have not laid off workers, though many fear they will begin doing so after the deadline passes.:
Very convincing.
"Three airline industry companies slated to receive $338 m
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Are you alleging that that was somehow part of my argument, or am I expected to answer random questions like an AC's Magic 8 Ball?
27,000 out of how many ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ie what is that as a percentage ? 5% is not much, 50% is horrendous.
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And one very important one that was not canceled (Score:3, Funny)
The big guy in the magic sled [noradsanta.org], on time as always.
What's a normal number? (Score:3)
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There is always something going on during high travel times, snowstorms, etc... What is a "Normal Amount" of flight cancellations?
And DC was badly hit by snow. That will cancel a metric fsck ton of flights. So yeah, the story might have a bit of an agenda.
I wish (Score:1)
Re: I wish (Score:2)
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I suppose the US might do something like that, but nobody else has. And the US doesn't have crazy security for it's regular rail.
It's hard to crash a train into a politician, or even a stockbroker.
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HSR makes sense on the east coast, and that's about it. It's no coincidence it's the one place where we come close to having HSR (Acela). Yes, the car companies cheated but trying to un-wind that with long distance HSR that doesn't immediately pencil out is not the answer. California is providing us an object lesson right now in why it doesn't fit in the USA.
Before we go HSR, we need to campaign against the Euclidean zoning (look that up) that tends to segregate retail, business, and residential construc
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Statistics (Score:4, Interesting)
I hate when statistics are reported without context. Clearly intending to mislead. How many total flights have not been canceled since Christmas Eve? I mean what percent are we talking about? Give me all the numbers needed to see this in context and non-cherry picked perspective. Fuck off.
Some of the numbers you want (Score:5, Informative)
According to these guys [weforum.org] there are about 100,000 commercial flights per day, globally. So 3 or 4 thousand cancellations in a day represents a 3 or 4% decline with 2016 as the baseline. The recent baseline may be lower, so the percentage may be higher. For a real comparison we need to compare it with the previous Covid related drops and it does indeed look comparable to February 2020 [flightradar24.com], before things really got crazy. Statistics for March, and a chart that shows historical and recent flight data is left as an exercise for the readers, editors, etc.
How many tons of CO2 not spewed? (Score:2)