The Transportation Security Administration, which has been grappling with unruly passengers, urged people once again to “be patient.”
U.S. travel delays stretched into Sunday as a winter storm swept eastward and carriers dealt with staff shortages caused by the rapid spread of the omicron variant.
The rocky weekend caps a holiday season marred by a wave of flight disruptions. With the U.S. hitting record COVID-19 infections and related staff absences, the busy travel period has been snarled by at least 13,000 canceled flights since Christmas Eve. At this point, thousands of travelers are attempting to return home after the holidays.
Chicago’s O’Hare International is the focus of Sunday’s delays, logging more than 250 cancellations so far of flights scheduled to leave and a comparable number of arrivals. That’s about a quarter of the total for both measures, according to FlightAware. On Saturday, about 45% of flights scheduled to leave from O’Hare and 55% from Chicago Midway were scratched, according to FlightAware.