Breakdown of El vuelo está cerrado, hay que cancelar.
estar
to be (location/state)
cerrado
closed
haber
to be (there is / there are)
que
that / than
Questions & Answers about El vuelo está cerrado, hay que cancelar.
Why do we use hay que here instead of tenemos que or tienes que?
hay que is an impersonal way to say 'one must' or 'it is necessary to'. We use it when we do not want or need to specify exactly who is doing the action, and it is always followed by an infinitive verb like cancelar. If you used tenemos que cancelar, it would specifically mean 'we have to cancel'. Using hay que just states a general necessity: the flight is closed, so cancellation must happen.
Why is it está cerrado and not es cerrado?
Why isn't there an 'it' at the end of the sentence, like hay que cancelarlo?
While you could say hay que cancelarlo (one has to cancel it), Spanish often drops the object pronoun when the context is perfectly clear. Just saying hay que cancelar sounds completely natural here because both speakers already know they are talking about the flight or their travel plans.