Airlines dealing with major staffing shortages are bracing for the busy Fourth of July travel weekend.

Some airlines have already had to cancel or delay flights.

Earlier this week, Delta's CEO apologized to its customers in advance and offered free flight changes for travelers this weekend.

Some airlines will offer travel vouchers or gift cards for passengers willing to be bumped on oversold flights, but what happened on one flight from Michigan to Minnesota this week, is almost unheard of.

According to passengers on the flight, Delta offered $10,000 for eight people to give up their seats on the plane.

Multiple passengers on social media confirmed it, saying it all started at the gate with an opening bid of $5,000.

When there weren’t any takers by the time boarding began, delta bumped the offer up to $7,500.

Once passengers were on board, a flight attendant announced they were still looking for volunteers, and offering $10,000 cash each.

They say it still took about 20 minutes before enough people decided to get up and take the offer.

Delta has not confirmed or denied the offer.

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday said he thought the U.S. should consider instituting a mandate that would require domestic air travelers to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Fauci — a White House medical adviser — declined to say whether he had briefed President Joe Biden on such a policy. However, he did say a vaccine requirement to board domestic flights is "reasonable to consider."

"There's requirements whether you want to get into college or a university, if you want to work in certain places, and if you make vaccinations a requirement that's another incentive to get more people vaccinated," Fauci said. "If you want to do that with domestic flights, I think that's something that should be considered."

Fauci's comments come as hundreds of flights across the country were delayed or canceled as airlines experienced worker shortages amid COVID-19 outbreaks.

The current spike in COVID-19 cases is largely being driven by the omicron variant — a highly contagious strain that now represents at least 73% of all new cases across the U.S.

"We're in a tough situation with omicron. It's not something to be taken lightly," Fauci said.

Fauci noted that data from South Africa — one of the first countries to experience an omicron surge — indicate that the new strain may not cause as serious cases of COVID-19 as other strains.

While it's unclear how the virus will behave in the U.S., Fauci noted that officials are considering lowering the time of isolation from a COVID-19 diagnosis from 10 days to seven days to prevent further worker shortages in essential industries.

"Certainly, with the health care workers, we're going to be doing it," Fauci said, noting that the administration will consider lowering the isolation period for workers in other industries deemed "essential."

In September, Fauci told theSkimm Podcast that he would support a vaccine mandate for air travel.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. saw its second-highest day of new infections last week, with nearly 300,000 new cases on Monday alone. The current seven-day average of new cases is about 175,000 a day, up from about 118,000 on Dec. 14. During that same period, deaths have remained fairly stagnant, rising from an average of 1,100 per day to 1,200 per day.

DENVER, Colo. — Airlines are struggling to keep up with demand.

American Airlines has canceled more than 1,800 flights across the country since Friday. It's the second major airline to experience major problems in the last three weeks. Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights in mid-October.

“You can go back all the way to start of the summer travel season, we saw this roll across the airlines from United to American, and recently we saw Southwest,” said Skyler McKinley, a representative with AAA. “Every airline is struggling with the same factors. There’s also a lot of uncertainty. Right now, airlines are going above and beyond— allowing passengers to cancel their flights in the pandemic.”

Not only does American Airlines blame staffing shortages for the issues, but severe winds in its largest hub of Dallas Fort Worth

American Airlines expects to have 1,800 flight attendants to return this week, and more to be on the job by Dec. 1.

With the holiday season around the corner, experts are aware of the worries travelers have. But there is some good news, McKinley says.

“Right now is where you want to see the hiccups,” McKinley said. “Because seeing them now generally is a sign that the airlines are balancing for everything else. When they know they’ll have a surge in demand, they’re going be able to rise to meet it.”

According to Business and Economic Journalist Marc Stewart, airline apps and early ticket purchases will be a traveler's best friend.

“Take the first flight of the day, yes it may mean getting up early, but the airlines try to keep an online schedule first thing in the morning,” Stewart said. “If your flight is canceled or delayed, oftentimes you’ll be put on another flight or another connecting flight and use the app instead of waiting in line or on hold, if you go to the app on your phone the airlines have already provided you another option.”

Mckinley said problems with air travel won't be fixed overnight. He expects them to persist for the next couple of years.

It was a fitting place for an industry in need of a miracle.

In October, Air Belgium moved two planes to Lourdes, the Catholic sanctuary in France, to park up for the winter.

The planes — both Airbus A340-300s, of which the airline only has four in total — have been parked at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees airport for long-term storage.

A spokesperson for Air Belgium blamed the "reduced demand and current operational restrictions due to COVID-19" and said the aircraft had been parked temporarily "to defer maintenance."

The airline is one of many struggling in the pandemic. Aviation has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19, with legal restrictions on travel joined by an unwillingness to fly by members of the public.

Looking at the third quarter of the year, the extent to which airlines have been crippled becomes clear. North American passenger jet arrivals dropped by 48% year-on-year, according to December figures released by aviation analytics company Cirium, while Latin America was barely better, at 46% down. Europe's numbers, meanwhile, have been devastated — over 70% down, year on year. Even in Asia Pacific -- which has controlled the pandemic better than other regions — arrivals are still over 30% lower now than they were this time last year.

Back at the end of October, figures were even more grim — international flights were down 75% year-on-year, according to Cirium (though domestic flights were better, down 36% globally). As the second wave of the pandemic has spread across the globe, airlines have taken drastic action to cut costs — from downsizing aircraft to retiring entire fleets and cutting routes.

Air Belgium's hail Mary at Lourdes isn't the only action the airline has taken. In the same month, it also paused the launch of a new route to Mauritius, and delayed the start of seasonal flights to Guadeloupe and Martinique.

It's just one of countless European airlines struggling in the pandemic. Air Baltic has flown this winter with planes only a third full. And figures from Europe's biggest airline conglomerate, IAG — which owns British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling — shows that it was flying half-full planes over the peak summer period of July to September, despite having reduced capacity to just 21.4%. With just 10% of the normal demand, BA lost £13 million ($17 million) per day.

As a result, with revenue 83% down, the group slashed its winter schedule to just 30% of last year's capacity.

EasyJet, too, announced its first loss in 25 years in October, and cut flights to 20% capacity for the rest of 2020.

Even behemoth Singapore Airlines is suffering. Not only has it cut 4,300 jobs, but in September the airline admitted that it "expects to operate under 50% of [pre-COVID-19] capacity at the end of the financial year."

While American Airlines predicted this fall that its end-of-year capacity will be down 50% overall, with long-haul international capacity at just 25% of what it was last year.

IATA, the International Air Transport Association, has predicted that for 2021, European airlines will see an average load factor of 65%. It doesn't sound so bad, considering — until you take into account that airlines need to run on average at 70% to break even.

Related video: Could new electric 'air taxi' be the future of travel?

Those predictions, of course, were all made before the new variant of Covid-19 was discovered in the U.K., leading to destinations around the globe closing their borders to aircraft coming from the U.K. Even the U.S. — currently the global center of the pandemic — introduced a Christmas Eve rule that all passengers coming from the U.K. from now on must present a negative test before boarding.

Christmas was well and truly canceled for the aviation industry.

So what can we expect in the near future?

Flights to wherever are open

For the next few months, airlines are network-planning to "just fly to wherever they can," says Graham Dunn, executive editor of FlightGlobal.

But for traditional and low-cost carriers, that means different things, he says, with traditional airlines concentrating on their big routes from hub airports, while low-cost airlines will be opening up the map wherever it's allowed.

"It's been interesting to see that when [budget] carriers have brought traffic back, they've tried to bring back more network than frequency, and kept the routes going where they could," he says.

"So I think you'll still see that point-to-point traffic continuing on low-cost carriers."

Conversely, he thinks traditional airlines will get more hub-based for now, with companies ditching regional routes as they try to make the money spinners productive.

"I think those secondary international routes, especially on long haul, won't be coming back [in the short to medium term]. You're much more likely to fly London Heathrow to New York JFK than Gatwick to a secondary U.S. airport," he says.

And instead of sitting pretty on a Dreamliner or an A380, expect to be on a smaller plane, in order for the airline to break even.

"In the short term, it'll be slightly smaller aircraft, slightly less frequency and traditional major hubs, rather than point to point," says Dunn.

Carbon footprints up in the air

Could those smaller aircraft spell good news for the planet?

There's one major positive that we've been able to take from the pandemic: the break that we've given the environment with our reduced flying patterns.

With the climate crisis spiraling out of control, the dip in aviation has given the planet a break for the past nine months.

And you'd think that the retirement of widebody planes and increased use of smaller aircraft for longer flights, plus routes being cut to hub airports, rather than having feeder flights from regional airports, would mean that those who are flying at the moment are at least flying greener.

But don't get too smug: That's not necessarily the case, says Ascanio Vitale, an engineer and environmentalist. His website, Flyzen, aims to be a more accurate kind of carbon calculator, taking more factors into account than most current software.

"You'd hope that we'd be flying greener at the moment, but it can be counter-intuitive," he says.

"It's not just what plane is being used, or the route, it depends on the traffic.

"The first thing you have to do [to reduce carbon footprints] is increase the load factor."

That means that if a smaller plane is being used to fly a long haul route at the moment, "for sure that's more efficient," he says.

But whether that actually cuts the passengers' carbon footprint depends how full those planes are.

If they've been filled to the gills, then indeed, it's more efficient overall. If, though, they're still half empty, the passengers' carbon footprint goes up — and will be higher than what it might have been a year ago, in a bigger, older — but, crucially, fuller — plane.

"It's not about efficiency, it's about impact," he says. "If there are half the amount of flights there were this time last year, but there's a 70% drop in passengers, the impact of these passengers is more.

"And if the airline switches to a plane with fewer seats to fill them more easily, even if it's full, it'll end up less efficient [than a full, larger plane]."

In short?

"We're polluting less at the moment overall, because the number of flights is reduced, and fewer people are traveling. But the single traveler is polluting more than before."

The good and bad news on fares

Thinking about returning to the skies in 2021? You might assume that the lack of demand will mean lower fares, with airlines slashing prices to encourage passengers back on board.

And if you want to splash out for your first post-pandemic trip and book a better-distanced seat in business class, you'd assume the decline in business travelers, and the swift, successful adoption of video conferencing, would see business class fares dive, too.

The bad news? According to travel booking app, Hopper, that's not the case. Business class fares in the United States are, on average, pricing 70% higher than 2020 fares for March 2021 departures. Economy fares are up 18% year on year for the same period.

The good? That may not stay the same.

There's been a "precipitous drop" in business class demand, says a Hopper spokesperson, with bookings down 20% this fall. That has translated into lower fares, too.

So for now, the airlines have raised their 2021 prices to make up for the lack of demand. But if demand stays low, expect them to fall. Your spring bargain may yet not be a pipe dream.

Graham Dunn thinks that we can expect to see better pricing in the near future on the big routes, since traditional carriers will be fighting for passengers on their normal moneymakers. And if you look a little further into the future, he thinks the bargains will be back across the board.

"You'll have airports looking for traffic, so they might be trying to make attractive offers to get airlines back in," he says, adding that if countries' vaccination programs are making progress by the summer, we'll start seeing more point to point flights, rather than routing via hubs.

New airlines?

The past year has been devastating for the aviation industry, with airline closures left, right and center.

But that doesn't necessarily mean reduced competition long term. In fact, it might be that the pandemic helps launch new airlines.

Airlines planning to launch in 2021 include Flyr, in Norway, and Pacifika Air, in New Zealand. LIFT just launched in South Africa, and there are so many putative airlines in the works in Iceland that artist Oddur Eysteinn Friðriksson launched a fake brand, Mom Air, to make a point about their nebulous plans.

But despite how desperate the industry looks now, Graham Dunn thinks that new airlines may well emerge post-pandemic. After all, he says, this summer's rise in European travel when restrictions were eased shows that the passengers are there — "you see the demand when routes come back."

And, he says, the budget airlines' point to point flying created entirely new markets, purely by offering lower fares. Never thought of going to Bratislava before? Have Ryanair dangle a $10 ticket in front of you, and you're on your way to the airport.

So if airports feeling the pinch start making it cheap for airlines to fly there, he says, it's perfectly possible we'll see those new airlines. What's more, with the airline failures of this year, and, potentially, more to come before the end of the pandemic, there will be plenty of spare aircraft hanging around and qualified crew to work on them. For those with the funds and the chutzpah to launch an airline, it could be a very good time to do so.

That won't be immediate. Dunn's betting on summer 2022. But he says that "there will be aircraft available, and financing, and [remaining] airlines will be retrenching their networks, and what tends to happen is that a new player comes in and seizes the opportunity." Although fares won't be lower in the short term, he says, he thinks they will dip within a year.

Ascanio Vitale agrees, reluctantly, but he urges us all to think more carefully about our flying habits once we take to the skies again.

"We've been polluting less this year because fewer people have been traveling and the airlines are getting rid of their old planes, but that isn't enough," he says.

"Aviation has a huge carbon footprint, and the trend to cap emissions is so slow, bland and unambitious that it won't make the industry sustainable.

"The pandemic has taught us that we should consume less, but I don't think people understood, because they're just waiting to go back to normal."

Some of the first executive orders signed by President Joe Biden are directives requiring masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus in this country. The orders, one about federal property and one about travel, are limited to locations and people the Biden administration has control over.

In addition, Biden is urging all Americans to wear face coverings for 100 days, with the idea being a concentrated effort for this long could help contain the spread of the coronavirus as vaccination efforts are ramping up.

Here is a look at how Americans may be impacted by the new executive orders:

Domestic travel

There is now a federal mask requirement that applies to airports, planes, ships, and many intercity buses, trains and public transportation.

Although airlines, Amtrak, and other modes of transportation already had individual or regional mask requirements, the executive order makes it a federal level requirement and helps backstop any wiggle room on the local level.

There are still unanswered questions about how this order will be enforced, and which modes of transportation, exactly, are covered.

International travel

Travelers coming to the U.S. from another country must show a negative COVID-19 test before heading to this country, and then quarantine upon arrival.

Federal property

Masks and social distancing efforts are now required on all federal property and federal lands. This includes places like federal courthouses, FBI or other federal agency buildings both in D.C. and around the country, and national parks and forests.

While regional or statewide mask mandates have informed local decisions at these locations, the federal level mask requirement helps ensure consistency of requirements on federal property.

Federal employees

All federal employees and contractors are required to wear masks while on federal property or otherwise on-the-job.

ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. —

One of two planes that collided in the air near Denver deployed a parachute and slowly drifted to the ground, where two people walked away from the aircraft, a sheriff's office spokesman said Wednesday.

The other plane, a small cargo turboprop, landed at an airport, according to Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Deputy John Bartmann. The lone person on board that plane was also unharmed.

The collision occurred over Cherry Creek State Park at about 10:25 a.m., he said. Bartmann said it was not yet known which aircraft was responsible.

"You expect something a lot worse. This was amazing," Bartmann said. "We've had several plane crashes in our jurisdiction. Never have we seen a parachute be deployed and bring the plane down safely."

The plane that used a parachute was a Cirrus SR22.

"It came down nice and slow," he said.

The other aircraft was a Metroliner, officials said.

A tweet from the National Transportation Safety Board said the incident happened as the planes were landing. The agency is sending a team of investigators.

The debris field stretched "pretty far," Bartmann said. He said if people find plane parts in the park, they should not touch them, and instead call the sheriff's office.

Watch the video above to learn more about this story.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened fewer passengers Monday than it had in the past 10 years, a spokesperson says.

According to TSA public affairs spokesperson Lisa Farbstein, department officers screened 154,080 people at checkpoints across the country on Monday. On the same date in 2019, TSA screened 2.3 million people.

The numbers highlight just how badly the coronavirus pandemic has crippled the airline industry. Three of the U.S.' largest airliners —

American,

Delta

and

United

— have seen significant reductions in their stock prices. United has seen nearly a 50 percent drop in its stock price in the past month, and American Airlines has lost nearly 30 percent.

All three airlines have said they are cutting back on staffing due to the crisis.

Delta

said Sunday that more than 20,000 employees have volunteered to take short-term unpaid leaves of absences.

The CARES Act — the coronavirus stimulus package signed into law by President Donald Trump on Friday — allocates up to $58 billion in financial relief for airlines. On Monday,

Reuters

reported that American Airlines would seek up to $12 billion in federal funding, including $6 billion in payroll grants and $6 billion in loans. American has more employees than any other U.S. airlines.