Alaska Airlines said last week it would trim its flight schedule by about 10% for the rest of January as it deals with “unprecedented” numbers of employees calling in sick during the COVID-19 surge.
Service to Wrangell — Flight 65 northbound in the morning and Flight 64 southbound in the afternoon — are not on the list for service reductions, Tim Thompson, company spokesman in Anchorage, said Jan. 6.
“Intra-Alaska service is not part of the current schedule reduction,” Thompson said. Though continued staff shortages could affect future scheduling decisions.
“The continued impacts of Omicron have been disruptive in all our lives and unprecedented employee sick calls have impacted our ability to operate our airline reliably,” the Seattle-based airline said in a statement. The company said reducing flights through the end of January “will give us the flexibility and capacity needed to reset.”
“The majority of this schedule reduction will occur in the Lower 48. There are no significant changes to our normal January flying to communities in Alaska,” Thompson said in a Jan. 6 email to Anchorage TV station KTUU.
However, flights from Anchorage to the Lower 48 would be reduced, including some flights from Anchorage to Seattle, he told the station.
U.S. airline flight cancellations began rising on Christmas Eve and peaked Jan. 4 at more than 3,200 — about one in every eight flights nationwide. As of last Saturday, U.S. airlines had canceled more than 28,000 flights since Christmas Eve.
Besides cutting flights, airlines including United and Spirit have offered bonus pay to find employees willing to work extra days.
The move by Alaska Airlines is similar to a decision by JetBlue Airways to cut about 1,300 flights through mid-January.
Southwest was among the hardest hit of U.S. airlines, canceling more than 575 flights, or 19% of its schedule for Jan. 6.
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