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CARL AZUZ: This is your captain, Carl Azuz,
ready to pilot you through a new edition of CNN 10.
Welcome to the show.
News from the flight deck, there could
be turbulence ahead for airline travel in the United States.
It's not yet back to the levels of passengers and flights
it saw in 2019 before the COVID pandemic happened,
but because airlines have been reducing the number of flights
they offer, planes are still packed,
demand is high for available seats,
and ticket prices are higher too.
A major reason why there are fewer flights
is because airlines have staffing problems.
Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, for example,
say they've canceled thousands of flights
recently because they didn't have enough pilots
and flight attendants.
So when there are issues with the weather,
it's harder for these companies to move
planes around and get crews on them when schedules change.
This isn't just hitting passengers
who get stranded at airports when
their flights are canceled.
Airline unions say the flight crews that are working
are stressed to a breaking point.
Some have been holding demonstrations in recent days
to draw attention to difficult work conditions
and a rise in unruly passengers is part of that.
There have been thousands of reports this year.
The US government has investigated 950 of them
so far.
In 2019, it investigated 146.
The Federal Aviation Administration
says most of the problems are disputes over wearing masks.
The US government requires airline passengers to do that.
Some of them don't want to.
The government is also requiring millions of American workers
to get a COVID vaccine.
Some airline industry analysts say
that could make staffing shortages worse
if unvaccinated crew members are unable to fly
or if they quit their jobs to avoid getting a vaccine.
The CEO of Southwest Airlines says his company may provide
exemptions for medical or religious reasons
to keep crews in the air.
All of this is going on as the holidays
approach and airline travel is expected
to increase in America.
So more canceled flights may be on the horizon.
PETE MUNTEAN: The truth is that no airline
is immune to these cascading kind of problems.
First it was Southwest Airlines three weeks ago.
Now it is American Airlines.
The airline canceled more than 800 flights
on Sunday, more than 500 on Saturday, more than 300
on Friday.
That means about one in every 10 American Airlines flights
were canceled over that three day period.
But American says the problems all really began on Thursday
when bad weather and high winds hit its biggest hub at Dallas
Fort Worth that led to a chain reaction of cancellations,
leaving planes and crews out of position.
American CEO David Seymour sent a letter to the entire airline
saying that they wanted to build certainty into the operation,
so it started proactively canceling flights.
But that left thousands of people stranded in long lines
at airports across the country.
- I'm sure it's terrible for a lot of people who have places
to be and family to be with, as do I. I have
to go to work tomorrow, so-
- It's annoying because it wasn't just American.
It was Southwest a couple of weeks ago.
So it kind of leaves us stranded for a while
because they just keep canceling and canceling.
- I don't understand why it's canceled.
I- I've heard that they don't have enough staff.
Well you sold me a product, I paid for it,
now it's your job to get me there.
PETE MUNTEAN: Remember, this is not just about staffing.
That is only part of the issue here.
But the good news is American says 1800 flight attendants
who are on pandemic leaves of absence return
to the job on Monday.
American says things should start to return to normal soon.
CARL AZUZ: An Oxford University professor of epidemiology,
the study of diseases, says it's almost impossible
to completely get rid of COVID.
Specifically with the Delta variant of the disease, which
spreads easily and quickly, he says you reach a point
where you can't keep a community in lockdown because COVID
will come up again and again.
So almost all countries are finding ways
to live with the virus rather than trying
to completely eliminate it.
China is not one of those countries.
This is where COVID 19 was first identified two years ago
and the nation has closed borders, required quarantines,
and instituted citywide lockdowns
when people do test positive.
The nation's prevention measures can turn on a dime.
- Crowds dancing at Disneyland on Sunday
evening to celebrate Halloween Shanghai style.
But just a few hours later, a COVID fright forcing the resort
into temporary lockdown.
The scene is a bit scary, you could hear one
man narrating on social media.
A large team of medical workers in hazmat suits, not costumes,
descending on the theme park, tasked with testing each
and every guest and employee, nearly
34,000 people by mid Monday.
The radio announcement asked all the people to stop,
one woman said.
This man, unsure how long they would be trapped in the park.
Once tested, visitors and workers
were shuttled back to their homes and hotels
using more than 200 buses.
They're now required to self-isolate
and undergo multiple COVID 19 tests in the next two weeks.
All of this because of one confirmed COVID
19 case from a nearby province.
Officials say she visited the park Saturday.
This is Shanghai Disneyland's first COVID related closure
since May 2020, when it became the first major theme park
to reopen amidst the pandemic.
- These are very clear.
- We visited the park as it started
implementing what were then new and seemingly
strict procedures.
Everything from social distancing
to sanitation stations to digital contact
tracing of guests, changes the rest
of the world quickly adopted.
But other countries are reopening borders and relaxing
COVID restrictions.
Places like Australia and Thailand
learning to live with COVID.
DAVID CULVER: But not China.
Officials here in Shanghai and across this country
are determined to stick to their zero tolerance approach.
One case is one too many.
- And if you think Shanghai Disney's shut down
sounds extreme, that's nothing compared to what's happening
in other parts of China.
An entire city in southeastern China's Jiangxi province
coming to a stop.
Officials temporarily turning all
the traffic lights to red because of just one
confirmed case.
Mass testing and lockdowns in other parts of the country.
And last week, two Beijing bound high speed trains
halted mid journey.
Hundreds tested and isolated after officials
found close contacts of one confirmed case on board.
As China prepares to host the winter Olympic games
in three months, extreme containment measures
are not likely to ease.
But if there's one magical place to spend
a few hours locked down, Shanghai Disneyland
might just be it.
The resort going ahead with their planned fireworks
and light show as thousands were being tested,
adding a spectacular backdrop to the government's narrative
of its winning COVID strategy.
David Culver CNN Shanghai.
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CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
Who gave the Aurora borealis its name, Galileo,
Copernicus, Kepler, or Cassini.
It was the astronomer Galileo who came up with the name
in the early 1600s.
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Wrapping up our show on a light note, a Northern Light note,
this is what can happen when a solar flare erupts and causes
a geomagnetic storm of electrons that are energized
through their acceleration following Earth's
magnetic field until they collide with atoms
and molecules that release their energy in the form of light
when they relax from an excited state.
See.
Because of a solar flare, the northern lights
were visible in more places than usual over the weekend.
They might have even been seen as far South as Portland,
Oregon or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, if the weather
hadn't been rainy.
It's too bad.
Light shows are aurorable.
Even if you find them a bit of a borealis, it's rare for them
to be visible illumination wide, and in the night sky,
they make a hue difference.
So you can see how across the spectrum
that these lights bedazzle.
I'm Carl Azuz.
Today's shoutout goes out to Denayer High
School in Denayer, California.
Thank you for your comment and your request
on our YouTube channel.
We hope you and everyone watching worldwide
has a wonderful Wednesday.
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