Airline News: Top Air Travel Stories From January

Welp, the month of January didn't start out very well for the airline industry, and it didn't end all that well, either.

The first month of the new year came in with a continuation of the holiday issues that eventually resulted in massive delays and cancellations. Staffing shortages due to employees calling out sick because of the Omicron variant were the main issue.

The month ended with the first major snowstorm of the winter in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the U.S., again resulting in huge delays and cancellations even in hub cities that were not affected by the snow.

In between? Plenty of news, so here's a look at airline headlines from the month of January 2022.

In what has been a loooong fight, telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon agreed on January 4 to delay the proposed rollout of 5G wireless service for two weeks. The airlines, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration, expressed concern that the new 5G would disrupt some flight communications. It won't be the first time this month that 5G is in the news.

In a bizarre story, a male flight attendant from Brazil was able to use the name and identity of an American who died at the age of four to gain employment with United Airlines. He successfully avoided the truth until authorities filed charges and he was fired by United on January 4.

In a huge boost for the Boeing Co., Allegiant Air placed an order for 50 737-MAX jets with an option to order 50 more. The January 5 news came almost three years after the MAX was sidelined by the FAA following two separate fatal crashes.

Another wild story, on January 9 came the news that many European airlines were being forced to fly 'ghost flights' - so named because they have nearly empty cabins - in order to maintain their arrival and departure gates at many airports. Another story that wouldn't be the last we hear about.

Concerns for airlines over the COVID-19 virus have been prevalent for two years now. On January 11, Southwest took matters into its own hands by partnering with a healthcare company and offering international travelers the chance to purchase Rapid Antigen tests. The test would immediately let fliers know if they were eligible to board the plane.

How bad was the Omicron variant surge that caused such huge delays and cancellations over the holidays? On January 11, United CEO Scott Kirby made a startling admission, saying that 3,000 employees had called out sick and, on one day, one of every three workers at Newark-Liberty International Airport were sick.

Following a social media post that went viral, Delta Air Lines on January 12 pledged it would finally offer non-binary booking options in 2022. The news came after an Arizona mother criticized the Atlanta-based carrier for still featuring just male or female choices when booking.

A dispute between domestic airlines and Chinese carriers went public on January 12 as the U.S. accused China of blocking American, Delta and United from landing in Beijing and elsewhere over COVID-19 concerns.

Barely halfway through the month, the concern over the Omicron variant had escalated all over the world. On January 16, the U.S. State Department had already issued travel advisories for 40 countries, including several at Level 4, its highest warning.

Despite AT&T and Verizon agreeing to a deal to delay implementation of 5G service around major U.S. airports, several international carriers began halting flights for fear of instrumentation failure.

It was just a matter of time. After China began blocking flights from the U.S. over COVID-19 issues, the U.S. hit back hard, blocking 44 flights from China. It was more than just an arbitrary number - that was the same amount of flights China had blocked from the U.S.

On January 29, Mother Nature made her presence known. A nor'easter roared up the east coast, putting a virtual stop to travel of any kind, but especially airlines. Between the major eastern seaboard cities of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, as well hub cities such as Atlanta and Miami, 6,810 flights were delayed with 6,030 cancellations over three days.