Thousands of flights canceled, delayed at start of workweek

A winter storm moving into the mid-Atlantic combined with the pandemic to continue frustrating air travelers whose return flights home from the holidays were canceled or delayed in the first few days of the new year.

More than 1,900 U.S. flights and more than 3,300 worldwide were grounded as of early Monday, according to tracking service FlightAware.

That follows Sunday’s cancellations of more than 2,600 U.S. flights, and more than 4,400 worldwide. And on Saturday there were more than 2,700 U.S. flights cancelled and more than 4,700 worldwide.

A winter storm is expected to bring as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow for the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and central Maryland through Monday afternoon.

The cancellations, coupled with more than 5,000 flight delays on Monday, just add to the despair felt over the weekend by holidays travelers trying to get home.

“It was absolute mayhem,” said Natasha Enos, who spent a sleepless Saturday night and Sunday morning at Denver International Airport during what was supposed to be a short layover on a cross-country trip from Washington to San Francisco.

Saturday’s single-day U.S. toll of grounded flights was the highest since just before Christmas, when airlines began blaming staffing shortages on increasing COVID-19 infections among crews.

A winter storm that hit the Midwest on Saturday made Chicago the worst place in the country for travelers throughout the weekend. About a quarter of all flights at O’Hare Airport were canceled Sunday.

Denver’s airport also faced significant disruptions. Enos, who was flying on Frontier Airlines, didn’t learn that her connecting flight home to California was canceled until she had already landed in Denver. Then it was a rush to find alternative flights and navigate through...