Messy weather in western North America is wreaking havoc on airlines and airline passengers again today. As of 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday (December 27), the website flightaware.com was reporting more than 2,850 flight cancellations for the day. More than 1/3 of those some 1,100 in all, were within, into or out of the United States. The biggest culprit appeared to be unusual winter weather in Seattle, where it was -4 Celsius at 2 p.m. local time. There was considerable snow in Seattle on Sunday. Seattle-Tacoma airport had 16% of its flights cancelled on Monday, flightaware.com reported. Alaska Airlines, Read more

Several ocean cruise ships were turned away from ports of call or were prohibited from letting passengers disembark in the Americas this week because of Covid-19 cases aboard, CNN reports. That’s nothing like the massive disruption when the pandemic hit in March of last year, but it comes at a time when the cruise industry was just getting back in the swing of things. An Expedia Group study released in late November found that there had been more than a 20% month on month increase in demand in Canadian cruise searches for travel in the fourth quarter of 2021 and Read more

A new survey conducted by JourneyWoman shows that the pandemic hasn’t diminished women’s desire for solo travel. Conducted between December 13 and 17, the JourneyWoman TravelReady Outlook 2022 survey reflects both optimism and caution, with 51% of women planning to travel internationally from January and June 2022 — dependent on pandemic guidance and travel advisories. In response to the new variant, the survey also shows that the majority of solo travellers (43%) are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, and 30% have not cancelled or postponed travel plans for 2022. “Seasoned solo travellers travel on their own terms, and in Read more

A new survey finds that roughly one-third of Canadians have cancelled travel plans due to the Omicron variant. The survey by Canadian-based redflagdeals.com found that 31% of respondents said they’ve cancelled flights because of the variant. Of course, that means nearly 70% plan to go ahead with travel plans. WestJet officials today told me they were very busy over the Christmas weekend. The survey also found that 63% of Canadians are hesitant about booking new flights right now. But Canadians also appear optimistic about the future. While only 22% of Canadians plan to fly in the next one to three Read more

The U.S. has been plagued by holiday cancellations, but Canada’s two largest airlines say things are much smoother north of the border. Multiple reports out of the United States this weekend point to major cancellation issues, blamed on both staffing shortages and weather issues. The website flightaware.com, which tracks planes around the world, reported 690 cancellations for flights within or into/out of the U.S. on Christmas Eve, followed by 996 on Christmas Day. As of 1 p.m. Eastern Time today, the site was reporting 774 cancellations for flights within or into/out of the U.S. Delta was looking at 131 cancellations Read more

The Tourism Industry Association of Canada is welcoming the federal government’s announcement to introduce new regulations that would temporarily expand the Local Lockdown Program to include employers subject to capacity-limiting restrictions of 50 per cent or more and reduce the current-month revenue decline threshold requirement to 25 per cent. They also are applauding the temporary expansion of the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit to include workers in regions where provincial or territorial governments have introduced capacity-limiting restrictions of 50 per cent or more. The Liberal government on Wednesday announced new programs to help businesses and workers hit by partial lockdowns across Canada. Read more