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United Airlines was forced to cancel a further 121 flights yesterday after winter storms continued to pound the Midwest.

The world's second-largest carrier ultimately cancelled five per cent of its services yesterday - many of them operating out of its Chicago hub.

That came on the heels of 318 cancellations on Christmas Day and 146 on Christmas Eve, again due to the extreme snowstorms that have laid siege to large swathes of the States and so far claimed 11 lives.

Despite some 27 inches of snow falling on some parts of the Midwest by Monday, many pilots' groups insist that the cancellations are rooted in mismanagement rather than bad weather.

'It is unconscionable that United would allow this gaping hole in the schedule during the most critical time of year for holiday travellers and then try to shift the blame to acts of God,' said Mark Bathurst, chairman of the United Airlines chapter of the Airline Pilots Association.

Rejecting that criticism, a United spokesperson noted that the carrier's Chicago base leaves it more vulnerable to weather-related delays than other airlines.

Around 12% of United's December flights have been delayed by bad weather, compared with 5.5% for the rest of the industry.

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