WestJet has announced the cancellation of more fights.

The company has announced they're cancelling 1 in 5 of their February flights.

A written statement from WestJet released on Tuesday (Jan. 18) cites staff shortages due to the Omicron COVID variant.

Affected travellers are being notified over the next few days.

Interim CEO Harry Taylor was quoted in the release, alluding to frustrations with the rules imposed on the travel industry.

"We continue to advocate for the elimination of cumbersome travel rules that are unnecessarily impacting Canadians and prolonging the recovery of the travel and tourism sector...Canada remains one of the only countries in the world requiring multiple molecular tests for fully-vaccinated travellers -- these testing resources should be redeployed to our communities."

The announcement comes soon after the company announced 15 per cent of their January flights were to be cancelled in late December.