Alaska Airlines has warned it will reduce flights by 10% in January 2022 due to a spike in the number of COVID-19 infections reported among staff.
According to an official statement, Alaska Airlines is facing “unprecedented employee sick calls” during the current COVID-19 surge.
Alaska added the rise in new infections across airline staff has forced the carrier to temporarily cut 10% of scheduled flights through to the end of January 2022.
The statement continues: “As we have entered 2022, 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. We are deeply grateful for how our incredible employees have pulled together to take care of our guests and each other, operate safely and make the best of a very difficult situation.
“Right now, we need to build more reliability back into our operation as we deal with the impacts of omicron and during a time when guests generally fly less. We’ve decided to reduce departures by about 10% through the end of January.”
The airline expects the move to provide greater flexibility and the capacity needed to “reset while continued flexible travel policies enable guests to adjust their plans accordingly”.