Over 200 Flights Canceled At LAX On New Year's Day

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - A wave of New Year's Day flight cancellations in the Southland inconvenienced travelers Saturday, with 208 flights canceled at LAX.

"Nationwide, airline cancellations and delays continue due to staffing shortages and weather," LAX tweeted at 9:51 a.m. "Please do check your flight status for the latest. Currently, 79% of all flights scheduled today at LAX are operating on time."

Orange County's John Wayne Airport reported nine canceled flights, with six at Long Beach Airport and five at Hollywood/Burbank Airport.

The problems are a continuation from last week, when thousands of flights were canceled worldwide on daily basis. On Saturday, the tracking site FlightAware.com listed 4,240 canceled flights around the world, 2,452 of which involved flights into or out of the United States.

The scrapped flights are largely blamed on airline staffing shortages caused by the latest surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant.