Get ready for more crowded flights for the rest of the month, Alaska. With an unprecedented number of employees unable to work because of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, Alaska Airlines has cut back its flight schedule by 10 percent for the rest of January. That generally means every set will be filled on the remaining flights.
“We’re at our best when we are safe, reliable and caring. And 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.” the Alaska Air Group Inc. unit said in a statement.
“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. To our guests, we apologize for the considerable inconvenience and are working hard to return to the level of service they know and expect from us,” the company said.
“We’ve decided to reduce departures by about 10% through the end of January. This will give us the flexibility and capacity needed to reset while continued flexible travel policies enable guests to adjust their plans accordingly. This will also give us time and space to find our path forward together, with Covid-19 as a continued reality in our business and our world,” the company said. “We will learn from these challenges, improve where we must and deliver on our promise to deliver nonstop care each and every day.”
The company’s Twitter feed was filled this week with complaints from passengers unable to get where they were scheduled to go, and airline customer care employees were responding as best they could to complaints of missed flights, lost luggage, and long waits on the tarmac.
On a brighter note for the company, Alaska Airlines was ranked the 8th safest airline of the major companies in the world this week by AirlineRatings.com, and the safest U.S.-based airline:
