Alaska Airlines is cutting 10% of its January flights due to 'unprecedented employee sick calls'

• Alaska Airlines announced it is cutting about 10% of its January flight departures due to Omicron.
• The airline said, "unprecedented employee sick calls" have made it difficult to operate reliably.

Alaska Airlines announced Thursday that it is cutting about 10% of its flights through the end of January, citing staffing shortages.

The Seattle-based carrier explained the sweeping Omicron variant has led to "unprecedented employee sick calls" and Alaska's operation cannot operate reliably with the absences. The airline's external affairs manager, Tim Thompson, told local Anchorage NBC TV news affiliate KTUU that most of the reductions would focus on the Lower 48.

In a press release, Alaska apologized to customers for the inconvenience, saying the reductions will give the airline the "flexibility and capacity needed to reset" as it grapples with Omicron.

Alaska's decision comes a week after JetBlue announced it would be cutting 1,280 flights through mid-January to combat staffing shortages caused by the highly-contagious variant.

"Like many businesses and organizations, we have seen a surge in the number of sick calls from Omicron," a JetBlue spokesperson told Insider. "We entered the holiday season with the highest staffing levels we've had since the pandemic began and are using all resources available to cover our staffing needs."

JetBlue's president and chief operating officer, Joanna Geraghty, told employees in a memo viewed by Insider that it was canceling flights that had the lowest impact on customers, particularly "in cases where we can combine flights to the same destination on the same day."

Other airlines, including SkyWest, United, and Delta, confirmed to Insider that the Omicron variant has also impacted their flight schedules as employees call out sick. The absences, coupled with bad weather, caused thousands of flight cancellations over the holidays.

The schedule reductions and flight cancellations have come despite the US Centers for Disease Control shortening its COVID quarantine guidelines for asymptomatic people from 10 days to five. Delta Air Lines sent a letter to the agency on December 21 asking for the change, saying the 10-day isolation period could disrupt its workforce and operation as Omicron spreads.