(NEW YORK) — The travel chaos continues for an eighth consecutive day Friday, with almost 1,300 U.S. cancellations as of 11 a.m. ET. The airlines have been grappling with the one-two punch of bad winter weather and a surge in crew COVID cases that have left them short-staffed, and forced airlines to cancel nearly 10,000 flights since Christmas Eve.
Now the Federal Aviation Administration is warning of staffing issues of its own, such as sick air traffic controllers. In addition, the FAA warned on Thursday that weather, holiday traffic and COVID-19 “are likely to result in some travel delays in the coming days.”
“Like the rest of the U.S. population, an increased number of FAA employees have tested positive for COVID-19,” the FAA said in a statement. “To maintain safety, traffic volume at some facilities could be reduced, which might result in delays during busy periods.”
The travel turbulence couldn’t have come at a worse time as millions of Americans travel during what could be the busiest travel period since the start of the pandemic. Roughly 8.5 million fliers are expected to pass through U.S. airports from now until Jan.3, according to estimates from the Transportation Security Administration.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has been hit particularly hard this week — holding the No. 1 spot for the most cancellations in the world for three days in a row. Denver International took its place on Friday morning, topping the list with more than 250 cancellations.
Carriers are trying to proactively cancel flights to give travelers time to rebook.
JetBlue Airways, which has seen sick calls in some departments up 200-300% more than average, canceled more than 1,200 flights over the next few weeks.
“While the new CDC guidelines should help get crewmembers back to work sooner, and our schedule reduction and other efforts will further ease day-of cancellations, we expect the number of COVID cases in the northeast — where most of our crewmembers are based — to continue to surge for the next week or two,” the airline said in a statement. “This means there is a high likelihood of additional cancellations until case counts start to come down.”
Delta Air Lines is already planning to cancel 200 to 300 daily flights for the upcoming weekend, citing “increasing winter weather and the omicron variant.”
Thousands of travelers who have had to call the airlines to change their flights have been met with long wait times.
Alaska Airlines was reporting hold times of up to 20 hours on Thursday.
Delta and JetBlue are quoting hold times of one hour and 35 minutes and two hours and 16 minutes, respectively.
On Monday, airlines got their first sign of possible relief when the CDC shortened the isolation period for asymptomatic and fully vaccinated individuals who contract COVID-19 from 10 days to five.
JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes told CNBC Thursday that the new guidelines are definitely going to help, but that “the size of the problem really is just the number of people contracting it.”
“Things are likely to get worse before it gets better,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The New Year’s Day Powerball jackpot rose to $500 million, up from $483 million. The new jackpot estimate has a cash equivalent of $355.9 million.
The jackpot was raised after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn in Wednesday’s drawing. There have been 37 drawings in a row without a jackpot winner.
“Ticket sales have been strong through the holidays, and we anticipate the majority of ticket purchases for the next drawing will happen on New Year’s Day,” said May Scheve Reardon, Powerball Product Group chair and Missouri Lottery executive director.
The Powerball jackpot was last hit on Oct. 4 in California when a single ticket won a $699.8 million grand prize. This was the fifth largest prize in Powerball history.
Game leaders urged players to check their tickets for one of the nine ways to win.
Wednesday’s drawing produced one winning Match 5 ticket worth $1 million in Georgia and two winning Double Play tickets, worth $500,000 each, sold in Michigan and Puerto Rico.
Powerball will also be holding a special $1 million drawing just after midnight, eastern time, on Jan. 1. The winner will be chosen from five finalists who entered the promotion through their local lottery.
The largest Powerball jackpot hit this year was on Jan. 20 for $731.1 million in Maryland.
(NEW YORK) — Jeep evangelists listen up: Your rugged adventure mobile is going silent.
The gas-guzzling SUVs that have rolled off Jeep’s assembly lines for 80 years will be recast as “green” vehicles that live up to the brand’s off-roading reputation, according to Christian Meunier, the global CEO of Jeep.
Meunier’s ultimate goal? For Jeep to become a “zero-emission freedom brand.”
First up: The Wrangler 4xe, a plug-in hybrid that went on sale this year and already accounts for nearly 25% of Jeep’s volume. The 4xe makes 375 horsepower and has an EPA fuel economy of 49 MPGe (miles per gasoline-gallon equivalent, including electricity). Drivers get 21 miles of electric-only driving range when the 14.0-kWh lithium-ion battery is charged. Under the hood is a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder engine.
The Wrangler 4xe outsold the Prius in the first-quarter of 2021 and is now the No. 1 PHEV in the country. The Grand Cherokee 4xe arrives next year.
“The 4xe could make Jeep die-hards change their mind about leaving [internal combustion engines],” Meunier told ABC News. “When you drive electric Jeeps you fall in love with them.”
He added, “A lot of torque is awesome for off-road driving. It’s cool to be green.”
Electrification may be Jeep’s future — with a few exceptions. EPA fuel economy estimates of the newly launched Rubicon 392, the most powerful Wrangler with a mighty 6.4-liter Hemi V8 engine that produces 470 hp and 470 lb.-ft. of torque, clock in at 13 mpg (city) and 17 mpg (highway).
“The 392 is more of a niche market — 3% of total Wrangler sales. So very limited in volume and very exclusive,” Meunier said.
Jeep also reintroduced its iconic Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer to compete in the increasingly cutthroat luxury three-row SUV category. Moreover, Meunier and his team are aggressively targeting drivers in key markets — Europe, China and Latin America — to expand Jeep’s customer base. North America makes up two-thirds of Jeep’s global sales.
“There is a very big product offensive across the globe … [our] reliance on North America is getting less and less every day,” Meunier said.
Meunier spoke to ABC News about where the brand is headed and how to get more Americans to accept EVs. The interview below has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Christian, you want to make Jeep the greenest SUV brand in the world.
A: Our vision is really to be the zero-emission freedom brand and we have a plan to get there. It’s clearly a commitment to say we’re the greenest SUV brand in the world. Twenty-five percent of our sales in the U.S. are 4xe. I think next year it will be more. The 4xe is the most capable Wrangler. We’re pretty confident that we’re going to be the greenest, the most electrified SUV brand at a global level, which is a big departure from where Jeep was a few years ago.
When are we going to see an all-electric Jeep in the U.S.?
A: That’s a good question. The only thing I can tell you is that by 2025 we’ll have a BEV [battery electric vehicle] in every single segment and pretty much across the globe. And the first [all electric] Jeep will be launched at the end of next year.
We brought the Magneto [Jeep’s BEV concept] and 4xe to the Easter Jeep Safari in Moab. A lot of the hardcore off-roaders told us that the torque … of the Magneto and 4xe could make them change their mind about leaving ICE [vehicles].
Does Jeep feel extra pressure to produce an all-electric Wrangler to compete in the off-roading space? There is the Rivian R1T, GMC Hummer EV and upcoming Ford F-150 Lightning.
A: We will do it. The question is when and how. We’re full speed ahead on electrification. It’s an obvious thing for Jeep to accelerate the electrification for Wrangler and the other models.
Magneto was really a concept test … we wanted to have an impression from our community. We value enormously the community input and feedback. We have a lot of interaction with them.
How do you get Americans to buy EVs?
A: I think it will take a little bit of time. It takes product to prove that it’s equivalent or better and it doesn’t create annoyance. I think Americans enjoy their freedom and want to be able to use their cars whenever they want. And they want to drive as many miles as they want. When the technology is good they’ll jump on it. Americans are very open to [EVs] as long as it makes their lifestyle equal or better.
Which model in your opinion is the most important for the brand?
A: The two most iconic products that exist today when you talk about Jeep are Wrangler and Grand Cherokee. The Grand Cherokee is a wildly civilized machine. The best-selling Jeep in the U.S. is the Grand Cherokee with 250,000 units. Wrangler is No. 2, with 213,000 units. We’re off to a strong start with Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer — a premium extension of what Jeep is about.
Ford and Land Rover are determined to steal market share from the Wrangler with the Bronco and Defender. Have Jeep owners defected from the company? How can the Wrangler keep ahead of the competition?
A: The Wrangler has never sold as quickly as right now. We have zero stock on the ground and dealer inventory. Competition is healthy — it creates more visibility to a segment and it puts Wrangler more on the radar as well. It forces us to become better, come up with new ideas, new technologies. We’re not afraid of competition, it’s good. Is there a little cross shopping? Maybe. We don’t see a lot of defection from the Jeepers to Ford or another brand.
What is the biggest challenge facing every automaker right now?
A: The biggest challenge is — I would say there are many of them. We have raw materials going through the roof. Steel prices. Precious metal. Inflation in the materials we use to build cars so that puts pressure on the cost side. We have the microchips shortage which is a challenge for everyone. It forces us to be innovative and engineer cars with alternative solutions. The cost of electrification is quite high. We cannot pass everything to the customer so that puts pressure on us. We’re working with a lot of economies of scale to mitigate these issues. A lot of headwinds on the cost side.
So does that mean Jeep will have to raise prices on all vehicles next year?
A: It’s not only about pricing. It’s also about making sure we’re more efficient in the way we build cars.
(NEW YORK) — Thursday marks a week of travel woes across the country with more than 8,000 flight cancellations nationwide since Christmas Eve. As millions of Americans travel during what could be the busiest travel period since the start of the pandemic, airlines have been slammed with both winter weather and rising COVID-19 cases among flight crews.
Now, at least one major U.S. airline, JetBlue Airways, is signaling this weeklong crush of cancellations may just be the beginning.
JetBlue said on Wednesday it is preemptively canceling more than 1,200 flights over the next two weeks in order to have enough crews available to run a reliable operation.
“While the new CDC guidelines should help get crewmembers back to work sooner, and our schedule reduction and other efforts will further ease day-of cancellations, we expect the number of COVID cases in the northeast — where most of our crewmembers are based — to continue to surge for the next week or two,” the airline said in a statement. “This means there is a high likelihood of additional cancellations until case counts start to come down.”
On Thursday, more than 1,100 flights were canceled in the U.S. as of 2:30 p.m. ET.
Seattle Tacoma International has been impacted the most, holding the top spot for the most cancellations in the world for a third day in a row with nearly a third of all flights grounded. The airport added, “Staffing issues may bring further delays in operations.”
Alaska Airlines, whose main hub is in Seattle, is reporting call hold times of more than 10 to 20 hours.
“We strongly urge flyers with non-essential travel scheduled before January 2, 2022, to consider changing their travel to a later date using our flexible travel policy,” the airline said in a statement Wednesday.
The disruptions come as airports brace for the more than 10.5 million fliers estimated to fly from now until Jan. 3. The busiest New Year travel days are still ahead with Hopper forecasting 2.5 million could fly on Jan. 2 and Jan. 3.
Delta Air Lines is already projecting 200 to 300 daily cancellations for the upcoming weekend as “teams across [their] system continue to do all possible to mitigate constraints from increasing winter weather and the omicron variant.”
Experts say the COVID-19-related cancellations should be a reminder to holiday fliers to protect yourself as much as you can during travel.
“These cancellations are reasons why it’s important for people to wear the masks, wash their hands frequently and reduce movement around the cabin when you’re on a plane,” aviation expert Henry Harteveldt said. “It’s just really important. All of these are part of layers of safety to keep everyone as healthy as possible while traveling for the holiday.”
(NEW YORK) — Over the past year, routine space tourism emerged from science fiction to reality, digital art you can’t even touch auctioned for millions at Christie’s, and malicious attacks emanating from cyberspace crippled real-world critical infrastructure in the U.S.
The technology industry unceasingly shaped the way Americans lived in 2021, embedding its brands and tools into intimate parts of daily life as the ongoing pandemic further normalized virtual work, school and socializing.
The promises of tech’s ability to make our lives easier and more efficient continued to drive U.S. economic growth in the shadow of the relentless health crisis, but also exposed new pitfalls as more Americans lived their lives in a digital world where misinformation on everything from elections to vaccines thrives. This manifested off-the-screen in ominous ways during 2021, including an unprecedented post-election riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and an “anti-vax” movement that has prolonged the suffering wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The gatekeepers of Big Tech saw their net worth surge over the past year, but also endured a year of major shakeups: from Jeff Bezos stepping down as Amazon CEO, to a scandal-plagued Facebook rebranding as Meta, to Jack Dorsey resigning from Twitter. The mounting power of tech giants also came under renewed scrutiny — albeit accompanied by little action — from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Despite the wild 12 months where Americans watched, seemingly in real time, as technology transformed society in good and bad ways, experts are holding onto hope that the lessons we’ve learned in 2021 can inform us going forward.
“I’m trying desperately to be optimistic,” Karen Kornbluh, the director of the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative at the German Marshall Fund, and a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development during the Obama administration, told ABC News of the tech industry’s past year. “This has been a learning year. We didn’t need another learning year — but I do think a lot of people learned a lot about how this all works and how entrenched it is and how dangerous it is.”
Still, Kornbluh argues that the tech sector is “so innovative and creative and allows people to do so many things we never could have imagined before.”
“We can’t lose our sense of wonder about it all, and because there are these new opportunities, I do think the industry is going to try to put a lot of these problems behind it before we move into this new era,” she said.
Here is a look at the year in tech, lessons the industry has learned and what to expect looking forward into 2022.
Jeff Bezos becomes an astronaut and routine space tourism blasts off
While it used to take the backing of entire nations to launch humans into space, that has all changed in the past year as the new billionaire-backed corporate space race officially blasted off to new heights.
A record-high 13 human spaceflights were launched in 2021, more than triple the number launched in 2020. Eight of them were launched with the backing of private industry and one more carried a Japanese millionaire tourist as a passenger.
Key players in the emerging space tourism sector — including Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic — all flexed their muscles over the past year in a series of launches that sought to prove humanity’s new capability of routine spaceflight.
The industry took heat from some as simply a new playground for the ultra-wealthy, as pandemic-battered Americans watched billionaires including Bezos and Branson blast off on back-to-back joyrides to the edge of space this past summer and initial seats sold for up to $28 million. While economic inequality and environmental concerns compounded animosity towards this new arena, experts have argued that private sector involvement in the new space race has saved money for NASA and driven new innovations that can improve everyday life back on Earth.
For Star Trek actor William Shatner, who became the oldest person to go to space this past October at the age of 90 on a Blue Origin flight, the new technology that allows humans to take a quick trip to the edge of space instilled a deep sense of awe.
“What you have given me is the most profound experience. I am so filled with emotion,” the actor, who spent his career pretending to cruise the cosmos, told Bezos immediately upon landing. “I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it. I am overwhelmed.”
“Everybody in the world needs to do this,” Shatner added.
NFT craze goes mainstream, upending the art world and headlining Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
Over the course of 2021, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) went from an obscure buzzword among blockchain insiders to an inescapable craze that even headlined the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
NFTs, or one-of-a-kind digital artifacts that use blockchain technology (the same digital ledger system that supports cryptocurrency) to prove ownership and individuality, exploded in popularity over the past year in a craze that has left some scratching their heads.
In February, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey sold the first-ever tweet (a 2006 social media post that reads “just setting up my twttr”) as an NFT for some $2.9 million. In April, a collage made by digital artist Mike Winklemann (also known as Beeple) fetched a whopping $69 million when it was auctioned by Christie’s.
The sum at which Beeple’s art sold especially raised eyebrows for some. The artist has been known to upload his digital artwork for free on Instagram and his website, leading many to question what is driving the value of him now selling it in the form of an NFT. More perplexing for some, viral memes and gifs that were once sources of free and seemingly useless entertainment online are also fetching huge sums of cash when sold as NFTs. The so-called “nyan cat” meme, a digital image of a pixelated feline flying on a rainbow, racked in nearly $600,000 when it was sold as an NFT in February.
It’s estimated that total NFT sales are expected to generate a staggering $17.7 billion in 2021 alone, according to research compiled by crypto industry outlet Cointelegraph.
Despite some skeptics calling the craze a bubble, many experts don’t see demand for NFTs dwindling anytime soon — especially as the world increasingly shifts online and with the mainstream launch of the metaverse.
“They’re here to stay,” Christian Catalini, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Cryptoeconomics Lab, told ABC News of NFTs. “Because they do represent a fundamentally novel way to design all sorts of interactions.”
“I think we’re still in a very embryonic phase and I would assume as the space matures, that’s when actually these things will become more useful,” Catalini added.
“Often with technology, we tend to overestimate how quickly it can change our lives in the short term, or we also tend to underestimate how much it will change them in the long term,” Catalini said. “With all of these technologies, there’s a lot of potential in the long run, and there’s a lot of things that need to be figured out in the immediate term — and I think that’s all happening live, right now.”
The rise of ransomware
The widespread adoption of new technology also led to new threats emerging from the cyber world. A spate of high-profile cyberattacks, many involving ransomware, revealed new potential dangers for businesses and even critical infrastructure as attackers seemingly grew more brazen with their targets in 2021.
A cybersecurity attack in May on Colonial Pipeline, operators of one of the largest fuel conduits in the U.S., led to a multi-day shutdown of the pipeline that provides nearly half of all fuel used on the East Coast — by hospitals, schools, and much more. The company ended up paying the hackers some $4.4 million in cryptocurrency, some of which the Department of Justice eventually seized back. Just weeks later, the world’s largest meat processor, JBS, revealed it was also hit by a cyberattack involving ransomware.
Experts say use of this malicious technology surged over the past year due to a confluence of factors, including the rise of harder-to-trace cryptocurrency and a work-from-home boom that has resulted in novel IT vulnerabilities for many firms.
“Ransomware attacks are becoming more prevalent, and especially with more enterprises in a semi-remote environment,” tech industry analyst Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told ABC News, “and the ransomware attacks, we expect they could be up another 50%, going into 2022.”
“That’s really going to catalyze more spending for cybersecurity,” he added. “We think cybersecurity spend is going to skyrocket over the next year given the amount of threats facing enterprises, as well as governments, around the world.”
Tech fuels a ‘green tidal wave’ in autos
Also over the course of 2021, it became undeniable that the auto industry as a whole was reaching an inflection point and shifting away from the gasoline-burning combustion engines that have been used for generations and toward electrification.
Nearly every major car producer — from General Motors to Ford to Toyota — announced massive new investments into electrification of vehicles over the past year, and the Biden administration unveiled the goal of half of all new car sales in the U.S. to be electric vehicles by 2030.
“It’s really a green tidal wave that’s taken hold in terms of more consumers wanting to purchase electric vehicles,” Ives told ABC News. “Today, only 3% of automobiles in the world of EVs. We think that that goes to 6% by 2022 and 10% by 2025, and this green tidal wave we view as a $5 trillion market over the next decade.”
“You’re also seeing a blurring of lines between technology and autos” Ives said. “I think that’s going to be a big theme as companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon focus more and more on electric vehicles.”
In the shadow of scandal and scrutiny, Big Tech pivots toward the metaverse
In the wake of multiple scandals plaguing his beleaguered tech giant, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this year that he was changing the company’s name from “Facebook” to “Meta” to reflect a shifting focus on the metaverse.
The three-dimensional digital world created by augmented and virtual reality products and services, will be “the successor to the mobile internet,” Zuckerberg said during his keynote at Facebook’s Connect conference in late October. The chief executive’s vision for the metaverse will be a place where people meet, socialize, work and shop — all via a digital avatar of themselves and VR hardware.
2021 marked the year the metaverse took “center stage of growth, as more investors realize this is not just about the gaming sector,” Ives told ABC News.
“It’s going to take time for the metaverse to ultimately form, to unleash the potential that many see for it today,” he added, but said ultimately, “the metaverse is going to be a trillion-dollar market over the next decade.”
It’s not just Facebook-turned-Meta that has its eyes on the new digital horizon either, Ives added, saying, “We believe Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook combined could spend $10 billion on the metaverse over the next two years.”
Public trust in tech giants to build a new digital world safely has dwindled over the past year, as whistleblower Frances Haugen accused Facebook of “choosing to prioritize its profits over people” in her opening statement while testifying before lawmakers in October. Haugen alleged blatant disregard from company executives for potential harms their services can cause to democracy and the well-being of young people.
Kornbluh, who has spent the past year working with policymakers and beyond on potential reforms for an industry that has been largely left unregulated, also testified alongside Haugen in front of a House panel at a separate hearing earlier this month.
“It’s been a year when sort of the collective ‘we,’ like the policymakers in general, came to a better understanding of the problem and solution set,” she told ABC News of the renewed focus out of Washington on Big Tech. Still, with partisan politics and a midterm election year, she said she’s skeptical we will end up seeing any actual law changes in the near-term.
“I think Congress has made a lot of progress in thinking about it, but I think it’s hard to imagine that they’ll come to some agreement in an election year,” she said of any new legislation.
Ives echoed her sentiments, saying that despite the new focus, investors don’t see law changes coming on the immediate horizon.
“It feels like there’s been a tipping point from a regulatory perspective, both in Brussels as well as the Beltway, focused on the antitrust, monopolistic nature of these businesses,” Ives told ABC News. “The lack of consensus within the Beltway continues to be the dividing issue to get law changes.”
Despite the apparent impasse, Kornbluh says with Facebook and tech giants “moving onto the metaverse, do they want to keep having all these same discussions about social media?”
“I think the platforms may want to move on, and realize it’s not going to fix itself,” she said, suggesting companies themselves have signaled they are more open to reforms related to internet regulation.
Despite the volatile past year, Kornbluh said she remains optimistic about the future of tech, and especially the metaverse.
“It’s going to open up all kinds of creativity and innovation and hopefully, because there are these new opportunities for new industry and new businesses, that that will clear up a lot of this underbrush that we learned about before we get there,” she said. “Hopefully this was like a run, and we’ll figure out what to do differently before we move on.”
(NEW YORK) — The omicron variant continues to wreak havoc on holiday travel from coast to coast.
Over the weekend, airlines reported more than 3,000 flight cancellations with at least one stop in the U.S, according to FlightAware, and the travel troubles don’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. As of 11:30 a.m. Monday morning, nearly 1,000 flights had already been canceled, and the number was steadily creeping up by the hour.
United, Delta, JetBlue, American and Alaska cited the recent COVID-19 surge as one of the reasons for the cancellations because it has left them with crew shortages. In an effort to avoid more disruptions, JetBlue and Alaska have even resorted to offering extra pay to healthy employees who can pick up additional shifts.
Winter weather in the western part of the country didn’t help — slamming airports in Seattle, Los Angeles and Denver. Those three airports accounted for more than 600 flight cancellations on Sunday alone.
“COVID delivered this disruption,” Spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association Capt. Dennis Tajer said. “And it just shows you how tight the buffer is in the airline business right now, where they’re trying to fly as many flights as possible with just a handful of folks. So this is a little bit of a, you can’t plan for something like this, but you certainly should have a little bit better of a buffer, especially in this important travel period where folks are trying to get to their families.”
A majority of the flight cancellations luckily landed on traditionally slow travel days — Christmas Eve and Christmas — but there are still an estimated 16.5 million more fliers before the end of the holiday travel rush, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
“Omicron places airlines in a very tough position,” aviation expert Henry Harteveldt told ABC News. “Still reeling from major financial losses in 2020, airlines don’t want to forfeit any opportunity to generate revenue and, possibly, profits. Plus, no airline wants to cancel fully booked flights at any time — especially at Christmas. Given the random nature of how omicron strikes people, it’s also impossible for airlines to know who will get sick.”
He says that for now there is no end in sight to the travel chaos.
“It’s impossible to predict an end date for the omicron-related cancellations,” Harteveldt said. “Unlike when an airline suffers a disruption caused by weather, this virus is random. The best way to estimate its impact on airlines and other industries is to look at the broader trend.”
Airlines for America, the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, has been calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to shorten the quarantine time for fully vaccinated individuals in attempt to minimize disruptions from the omicron surge.
“The omicron surge may exacerbate personnel shortages and create significant disruptions to our workforce and operations,” Nick Calio, A4A’s CEO, said in a letter on Thursday to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Calio proposed the isolation period to be shortened to five days from symptom onset for breakthrough infections.
“In turn, those individuals would be able to end isolation with an appropriate testing protocol,” Calio wrote.
The letter comes after Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways, both A4A members, also asked for isolation periods for fully vaccinated individuals to be shortened.
ABC News’ Joanne Aran and Erielle Reshef contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — With the number of COVID-19 cases surging in New York, workers in the entertainment industry, many of whom are freelancers, are worried about the prospect of another shutdown.
At least 12 Broadway shows have canceled performances due to performers and staff testing positive. Three Broadway shows, “Jagged Little Pill,” “Waitress” and “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” announced they will close their doors permanently, after detecting multiple positive COVID-19 cases.
While understanding of the precautions, entertainment workers — many of whom have been in a precarious position for nearly two years as the live performance industry has been heavily impacted by the pandemic — are left worried this holiday season about their financial futures, especially without the safety net of benefits that had been provided in 2020.
“Eliminating the ushering salary would take a huge hit on anyone’s finances. I don’t think anyone’s really doing this just for fun, they’re doing it because they really need the money,” Rachel, an usher for a Broadway show who did not want her last name or the name of her employer used, told ABC News.
The production Rachel works for has not yet canceled a performance during this surge, and she said she feels confident in the safety protocols in place, including regular testing and indoor mask mandates, especially given the number of people she interacts with at work. But, given the rapid spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant, Rachel is still worried about the prospect of shows getting canceled.
“It’s just inevitable. It’s just a matter of time at this point. With how things are spreading, to me, it seems almost impossible to avoid,” said Rachel.
When the pandemic first hit, Rachel said she was put on furlough and was able to take advantage of unemployment benefits until the industry reopened. These pandemic-era unemployment benefits — a federal supplement on top of states benefits — are no longer available.
The prospect of shows closing again scares Rachel, who said she, like many of her colleagues, needs to work another part-time job along with ushering to cover her costs.
“It would be probably devastating because it would be a matter of going back on to unemployment in order to get paid. But at this point, there are no pandemic-like increases for the unemployment, so [it] would definitely not be enough for me to cover my expenses,” Rachel said.
Though she needs the money she gets from ushering, she said she would feel more comfortable if workers would be able to take a temporary break through the holidays.
“Would it have prevented any spread? I don’t know. Would it make me feel better? Yes. Would I lose lots of money? Yes,” Rachel said.
Elizabeth, who asked that her last name be withheld, is a freelance opera singer and has had several performances at Carnegie Hall canceled this week due to people testing positive for COVID-19, many despite being fully vaccinated and boosted. She said one of her colleagues will be missing all her Christmas shows. Christmas season is usually a high-volume time for musicians with many holiday shows going on.
Elizabeth and her wife, Sara, who both currently work in the entertainment industry, were able to stay afloat during the pandemic because of an accounting job Sara had.
Sara, who also asked that her last name be withheld, took the accounting job just before the pandemic hit and stayed there for a year. Due to her fibromyalgia, the job left her feeling burned out and sick. She left that position and took a six-month break when Elizabeth’s work started to pick up.
Elizabeth, who still had a part-time teaching job throughout most of the pandemic, lost a large portion of her income because of shutdowns. That left her only qualifying for six weeks of unemployment benefits.
During the six months Sara had taken off work, the two burned through savings they had.
“We weren’t expecting it to be bad again. We’ve just started rebuilding, financially,” Sara said. “I took this job, and she’s finally getting work again. And now we’re starting to see her first cancellation was this week.”
Three of Elizabeth’s shows this week were canceled, in addition to two more shows in January.
“It’s definitely scary. Because this time if things shut down again, we don’t have a safety net,” Sara said.
The couple said they would not be able to afford losing any of their pay.
Even now, their finances are very tight and they are having to cut costs on essential things, like health care. Sara should be going to the doctor every month for checkups but she hasn’t been since September.
“I’m getting medication still, but I’m not seeing the doctor as much as I should. I just haven’t been going,” she said. “We’re crossing our fingers and hoping nothing bad happens.”
(NEW YORK) — As pre-pandemic level crowds hit the airports for the holidays, three major U.S. airlines have been forced to proactively cancel more than 300 Christmas Eve flights due to the fast-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19.
United Airlines has cancelled 169 flights for Christmas Eve, as of Friday morning.
MORE: Winter holiday travel rush likely to approach pre-pandemic levels
“The nationwide spike in omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” United said in a statement. “As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport.”
“We’re sorry for the disruption and are working hard to rebook as many people as possible and get them on their way for the holidays,” the airline added.
A United Airlines airplane is pushed back from its gate at Newark Liberty International Ai…Read More
And it’s not just United that’s feeling the impact of the variant on crews.
Delta Air Lines has cancelled 124 flights for Christmas Eve. The airline says the “flight cancellations are due to a combination of issues, including but not limited to, potential inclement weather in some areas and the impact of the omicron variant.”
“Delta teams have exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying — before canceling around 90 flights for Friday,” Delta said in a statement to ABC News. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans. Delta people are working hard to get them to where they need to be as quickly and as safely as possible on the next available flight.”
Alaska Airlines has resorted to offering extra pay to their healthy employees who can work added shifts into this upcoming Christmas weekend.
The airline says they have had to cancel 10 Christmas Eve flights due to some of their employees quarantining after reporting that they may have been exposed to COVID-19.
Airlines for America (A4A), the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, is calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to shorten the quarantine time for fully vaccinated individuals, saying the omicron surge may create “significant” disruptions.
People wait in line to check in at the United Airlines ticket counter at Hartsfield-Jackson…Read More
“The omicron surge may exacerbate personnel shortages and create significant disruptions to our workforce and operations,” Nick Calio, A4A’s CEO, said in a letter on Thursday to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Calio proposed the isolation period to be shortened to five days from symptom onset for breakthrough infections.
“In turn, those individuals would be able to end isolation with an appropriate testing protocol,” Calio wrote.
The letter comes after Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways, both A4A members, also asked for isolation periods for fully vaccinated individuals to be shortened.
(NEW YORK) — The transportation industry has been bracing for pre-pandemic-level crowds this holiday season, but now two major U.S. airlines have been forced to proactively cancel some Christmas Eve flights due to the fast-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19.
As of Thursday evening, United Airlines has proactively cancelled 112 flights for Christmas Eve.
“The nationwide spike in omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” United said in a statement. “As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport.”
“We’re sorry for the disruption and are working hard to rebook as many people as possible and get them on their way for the holidays,” the airline added.
And it’s not just United that’s feeling the impact of the variant on crews.
Delta Air Lines also proactively canceled around 90 flights for Christmas Eve. The airline says the “flight cancellations are due to a combination of issues, including but not limited to, potential inclement weather in some areas and the impact of the omicron variant.”
“Delta teams have exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying — before canceling around 90 flights for Friday,” Delta said in a statement to ABC News. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans. Delta people are working hard to get them to where they need to be as quickly and as safely as possible on the next available flight.”
Airlines for America (A4A), the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, is calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to shorten the quarantine time for fully vaccinated individuals, saying the omicron surge may create “significant” disruptions.
“The omicron surge may exacerbate personnel shortages and create significant disruptions to our workforce and operations,” Nick Calio, A4A’s CEO, said in a letter on Thursday to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Calio proposed the isolation period to be shortened to five days from symptom onset for breakthrough infections.
“In turn, those individuals would be able to end isolation with an appropriate testing protocol,” Calio wrote.
The letter comes after Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways, both A4A members, also asked for isolation periods for fully vaccinated individuals to be shortened.
Lingering health concerns about commercial air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic have fueled a boom in private jet travel, a trend that has led to fresh scrutiny of the industry’s taxpayer bailout — which some critics are calling a “handout to the wealthy.”
The multi-trillion-dollar federal rescue for businesses clobbered by the coronavirus included billions for airlines grounded by travel restrictions and safety concerns — and, according to one report, more than half a billion dollars for boutique aviation firms that deliver private jet travel to the super-rich.
“This was the rest of us paying to subsidize the luxury consumption of the very richest people in the country,” Dean Baker, cofounder of the progressive think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research, told ABC News.
During the summer of 2020, at the time of the first of three bailout programs set aside for aviation, industry experts said that private jet operators — just like the commercial airlines — would be confronting substantial drops in revenue. Executives at private aviation firms said they needed the government’s help to save the jobs of their employees.
But at the same time, many of those same executives said publicly that they saw signs of a coming boom, fueled by concerns about the pandemic.
That forecast is now coming to pass, making the once-niche industry an overnight sensation thanks to those who can afford to shell out up to $20,000 for a flight across the country. Industry analysts say private aviation has now exceeded pre-pandemic levels of popularity.
“Private aviation has bounced back faster than many industries, including the airlines,” said Travis Kuhn, vice president of market intelligence at the aviation consulting firm ARGUS International. “At this point in time, private air travel is about 15% larger today than it was two years ago — and it is almost all directly attributed to the pandemic.”
Furthermore, Kuhn said that after flocking to private aviation “for the perceived health advantages” of avoiding crowded airports and commercial planes, wealthy Americans “have since discovered the time-saving and productivity advantages” — a sign that the increased interest in private aviation may be here to stay.
In 2020, private aviation firms collected a total of up to $643 million in government funds from the Payroll Support Program, the Paycheck Protection Program, and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program for small businesses, according to an analysis from Accountable.US, a government watchdog group. Subsequent iterations of the Payroll Support Program released even more funds to the private jet industry.
The overwhelming majority of funds delivered to private aviation firms came as grants that do not need to be repaid, as long as beneficiaries refrained from “conducting involuntary furloughs or terminations of employees” through September of 2021.
But some critics are calling on the firms that rebounded quickly to voluntarily return some of the money.
“These days, it seems many private jet companies are celebrating even greater fortune and opportunity regardless of government aid received,” said Kyle Herrig, the president of Accountable.US. “It’s time to pay taxpayers back.”
Among the biggest bailout recipients was OneSky Flight, an Ohio-based business aviation portfolio of brands like FlexJet, Sentient Jet, and PrivateFly, which received $81 million from a pot of money set aside in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help airlines. In a 2021 extension of the program, FlexJet, Sentient Jet and PrivateFly collected more than $50 million more in grants.
Executives at the OneSky companies have described the business as catering to a high-net-worth clientele, largely comprised of corporate clients and wealthy fliers. The companies’ social media feeds are peppered with endorsements from celebrity customers like astronaut Buzz Aldrin and golfer Bubba Watson, and references to their sponsorship of thoroughbred horse racing and an annual snow polo tournament in Aspen.
When OneSky reached out to the federal government for bailout dollars, company executives emphasized the needs of their pilots and flight controllers.
Directional Aviation, OneSky’s parent company, did not respond this week to a request for comment from ABC News.
Dan Hubbard, a spokesperson for the National Business Aviation Association, an industry trade group, told ABC News that “these businesses requested federal aid for the same reason countless other small businesses did: to keep employees on the job.”
“This crisis-moment investment worked — as it has in a host of industries — supporting employees and paving the way for their companies’ gradual recovery,” Hubbard said. “To have denied aviation businesses the same kind of lifeline offered to all other kinds of enterprises would have struck a blow to an entire segment of America’s aviation workforce.”
But critics have pushed back on that premise, arguing that private jet operators could have afforded to support their employees for a short stretch if they anticipated that business would rebound — which many industry executives said publicly at the time.
“It’s true that it does support jobs, but it would also support jobs if we agreed to pick up 25% of the tab for [Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos’ personal servants,” Baker said of the bailouts. “There are much better ways to create jobs than subsidizing the very rich. If these people value having their private jets, then they will pay what it costs to keep the industry in business.”
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the success of these firms so soon after accepting government support undermines the spirit of the programs.
“These programs are not designed, nor should they be, to make anyone better off, or even whole. They are a bridge to when our economy is on better footing,” said Ellis, who characterized the bailout as a “handout to the wealthy.”
“The private aviation industry benefited from increased interest during the pandemic … so they got taxpayer cash, and business soared,” he said.
Despite the criticism, some industry experts believe the stimulus of private aviation was warranted. Industry market experts have confirmed that private jet operators, just like the well-known commercial airlines, faced significant revenue drops at the height of the pandemic from mid-March through May of 2020.
Doug Gollan, the editor of Private Jet Card Comparisons, a blog covering the world of private aviation, said the success of the industry now is a reflection of how successful the CARES Act was in getting these businesses back on their feet.
“The money was meant to help companies navigate through the crisis,” Gollan said. “So, for the CARES Act, private aviation was the poster child of what a success story should look like.”
But questions about whether federal support should have more carefully targeted industries that would struggle returning to pre-pandemic levels stem in part from statements made by the private jet operators themselves, who’ve been publicly touting their success as the country emerges from the pandemic.
Kenn Ricci, the CEO of OneSky Flight’s parent company, recently told Bloomberg Media that business is now so good that he plans to expand his fleet by 40% over the next year.
And the recent success of private aviation has led the demand for new aircraft to drastically outpace supply, Bloomberg reported.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime grab,” Ricci said.
Lawmakers have previously taken aim at aviation firms that boasted of strong financial returns after accepting funds under the Payroll Support Program. In Oct. 2020, Rep. Jim Clyburn, the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, urged four cargo carriers to return hundreds of millions of dollars in government funds.
“It is troubling that Kalitta Air is receiving over $161 million in taxpayer funds intended to cover the wages and benefits of its workers, while simultaneously experiencing increased demand for its services,” Clyburn wrote to one of the companies. “Failing to return the funds to the Treasury would be inconsistent with Congress’ clear intent.”
When contacted this week by ABC News, the committee did not provide an update on the companies’ response. A committee spokesperson also declined to comment on whether the committee would be requesting that private aviation firms return pandemic relief money.
In the meantime, the juxtaposition of executives promoting their success after accepting government funds isn’t lost on some industry leaders. Patrick Gallagher, the president of NetJets, one of Ricci’s biggest competitors, has said that he is “hopeful, as a taxpayer, that some of those CARES Act funds get paid back.”
“We see our competitors touting their recent success and returning to pre-pandemic levels,” Gallagher said. “I’m glad that those funds were available to keep people employed, but many of these companies today are outdoing bolt-on acquisitions and spinning off new ventures.”
“Personally,” Gallagher said, “I am hopeful they are also paying back the tens of millions of dollars that they took to make payroll just a few months ago.”
