By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Shares of many American airline companies traded weaker in Monday’s pre-market session after thousands of flights were cancelled in the extended Christmas weekend, generally the peak time of travel.
The fast-spreading omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus resulted in pilots calling sick, and general staff shortages were blamed for the cancellations. Weather also played the spoilsport in many cases.
United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) stock fell 3% while American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) and Delta Air (NYSE:DAL) were both down around 2%. Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) traded 1.7% lower. Spirit Airlines (NYSE:SAVE) fell 0.1% while shares of JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) were yet to be traded. They had closed higher Thursday, with markets being shut Friday due to Christmas.
A total of 997 flights were scrapped on Christmas Day and nearly 700 on Christmas Eve, Reuters said. Airlines had canceled 1,318 flights within, into or out of the U.S. by Sunday afternoon, quoting flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.
On Sunday, Delta canceled 167 flights, United 115, and American 83. Globally, 3,023 flights were called off and more than 13,742 were delayed, as of 8:15 p.m. EST Sunday, FlightAware data revealed.
The average of Covid-19 cases reached 184,802 in U.S. as of Saturday, per the Wall Street Journal, analyzing data from Johns Hopkins University. France reported more than 100,000 new cases of Covid Saturday while U.K. continues to reel under the onslaught of the mutant virus.
The omicron variant is now the dominant form of Covid-19 in many countries, having been found in more than 90 countries. Said to be at least twice as fast spreading as the delta variant – the mutant that ravaged much of the world earlier this year – omicron hasn’t yet resulted in a correspondingly higher number of hospitalizations, which has kept markets and travel company shares afloat.