Holiday weekend travel surge, combated with thousands of flights cancelled

(KYMA, KECY/ CNN) - The Transportation Security Administration reported that more than 1.5 million people were screened at airport checkpoints on Saturday.

While U.S. air travel saw this surge on Christmas day, it still did not reach pre-pandemic levels.

The numbers are higher than the 1.1 million people the agency says it screened on Saturday of Christmas week last year. However, it's well below the nearly 2.5 million people who were screened in 2019.

This year, the TSA says it screened more than two million people at airports across the country on Thursday, December 23rd – which was the high mark of the week.

Meanwhile, U.S. airlines canceled more than 1,200 flights Sunday, marking the third day in a row of holiday travel chaos.

The major airlines blame the cancellations on staff and crew being out sick because of the continued surge of the Omicron variant.

In addition to the 1,200 flights canceled, at least another 5,000 were delayed, according to the tracking site Flightaware.

United Airlines was forced to cancel 10% of its total schedule on Christmas Eve and another 12% of scheduled flights on Christmas.

Delta canceled 173 flights on Christmas Eve and Jetblue was forced to scrap about 7% of its overall schedule.

Globally, 6,000 flights were scratched on Christmas Eve, Christmas and the day after Christmas.