Air travel is having a chaotic start to the year. Airlines have canceled more than 5,000 U.S. flights this weekend, facing severe weather throughout the country and staffing shortages resulting from COVID-19 infections. On Sunday, airlines had scrubbed more than 2,000 U.S. flights on top of about 3,000 flights canceled on New Year’s Day. A winter storm prompted the cancellations of hundreds of flights in Chicago. Disruptions continued on Sunday with other cancellations in Atlanta, Denver, and New York City. On top of the bad weather, several airlines, including JetBlue ($JBLU@US), United ($UAL@US), and Delta ($DAL@US), blamed a rise in COVID-19 infections from the fast-spreading omicron variant among crews. The travel woes come during what airlines expected to be among the busiest days since the pandemic began. At the end of 2021, the Transportation Security Administration had seen an 80% increase from 2020. The omicron variant is a new challenge for carriers that are trying to stabilize after nearly two years of the pandemic. Southwest ($LUV@US), United, American Airlines ($AAL@US) stocks were at their lows of the past year.