Data provided by flight tracker FlightAware showed that airlines across the United States have canceled over 5,000 domestic flights in the first few days of the new year and at least 8,600 flights worldwide.
On January 1, more than 2,700 US flights were canceled, which marked the highest single-day increase since just before Christmas, when a massive surge in COVID-19 infections led to mass cancellations brought on by staff shortages.
Most of the flights canceled or delayed over the weekend were due to the pandemic as well as the winter storm that hit the country's Midwest on Saturday.