Few were inconvenienced, but the headline to me screams out "Bunch of muppets" who were unable to plan ahead and left it to the last minute before finding themselves suddenly caught short - or (as the headline suggests) because someething had gone very wrong. In
PR speak, this is a failure of news management.
Instead, a "temporary deferral" should have been quietly announced in the period between Xmas and 01-Jan when hundreds of people were dying each day, everyone was terrified to go out in case they got sick and was instead watching TV at home while nobody wanted to look at the news, with a headline of "Flights deferred due to Govt Covid safety guidelines,etc..." - namely make clear that everyone wanted the flights to go ahead and was ready, but it's all because of Covid safety policies that we have to wait a bit longer.