NSW, South Australia, Queensland and the ACT all broke their daily case records today, triggering staffing shortages across much of the nation.

Airlines across Australia have been impacted by the spike in Covid cases as the companies work to restart air travel ahead of the festive season.

Virgin Australia has been forced to cancel a handful of flights due to the pandemic but said it was “working around the clock” to get guests to where they need to be.

“We apologise to any guest impacted by changes to our schedule and we are working around-the-clock to ensure our guests get to their final destination as planned,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson said.

“Guests are encouraged to visit the Virgin Australia website to check the status of their flight prior to travel. All impacted guests are automatically being moved onto alternative services as close to the original departure time as possible.

“Virgin Australia is operating hundreds of services today with little to no impact on scheduled departure or arrival times.”

The airline had particular issues in Darwin when a number of passengers spoke up about their flights being cancelled or changed, days before Christmas.

Darwin woman Kate Nichols told SBS her flight from Darwin to Sydney was moved to have her landing on Christmas Day.

“I think it’s obvious that people would like to get back to their families before Christmas Day, so it’s frustrating to have the flight land on the day instead,” she told the publication.

“Another friend of mine had her flight moved from 23 December to 27 December and had to buy a new set of return flights costing up to $1500 with a different airline.

“She was notified of these changes less than 48 hours before her flight during an extremely busy period of the year.”

Passengers were told crew having to isolate were partly to blame for the flight cancellations.

Virgin Australia said it was working to fix issues in Darwin, including moving passengers onto additional services and adding two ad hoc flights between Darwin and Brisbane, on Thursday, and Darwin to Melbourne, on Friday.

News.com.au understands Qantas has also cancelled a handful of flights ahead of the festive season but did this to consolidate passengers across planes.

Jayne Hrdlicka, the CEO of Virgin Australia, recently spoke to news.com.au of her plans for the airline in 2022.

“It’s been a tough couple of years. There are lots of things that we just did in our lives that we didn’t stop to think about, and we’ve had to stop and think about them and we do things a bit differently now,” she said.

“I just think it’s a time for great optimism. Borders are opening. We’re all well vaccinated. And we just need to stay focused on the things that matter in our lives and not get distracted by the latest new variants or whatever might be.”