Aircraft passengers are twice or even three times more likely to catch Covid-19 during a flight since the emergence of the omicron variant, according to the top medical adviser to the world’s airlines. The new strain is highly transmissible and has become dominant in a matter of weeks, accounting for more than 70% of all new cases in the U.S. alone.

The omicron variant is attacking air travel. Airlines, airport security and passengers are all in the crosshairs of the COVID-19 variant.

During the Christmas weekend, over 6,000 flight cancellations occurred due to airlines not having sufficient staff and personnel to service their flights. Recall that the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association warned of flight disruptions during the holiday season if vaccine mandates applied to their pilots. Ironically, the vaccines did not create the recent flight disruption havoc, but rather, infections themselves. This highlights how empty threats based on misinformation exposed what has proven to be a weak position.

Omicron’s bad effect on air travel

Thousands of flights have been canceled amid the growing threat of Omicron. At the same time, many flights are starting late. Many airlines say that due to the rapid increase in the cases of Omicron variants, the lack of staff has also become the reason for this. According to flight tracker FlightAware, around 3,000 flights were canceled worldwide on Monday and 1,100 more were canceled on Tuesday.

Rapid increase in cases of Omicron in America

Efforts are being made to reduce the possibility of labor shortage in the airline. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday halved the isolation period for Kovid-19 cases from 10 to 5 days. Cases in the US are expected to reach a record high in January. Meanwhile, special attention is being paid to vaccination and testing in America.

While hospital-grade air filters on modern passenger jets make the risk of infection much lower on planes than in crowded places on the ground such as shopping malls, omicron is rapidly spreading just as more travelers take to the skies for year-end holidays and family reunions.

What are the risks of infection during a flight?

The Omicron variant has 32 mutations in the part of the virus that infect human cells, and has spread fast in several countries including the US, South Africa, Denmark, and the UK. In the US, Omicron went from making up 0.7 per cent of Covid-19 cases to 73% of cases in just two weeks.

It has now overtaken the highly infectious Delta variant to become the most common cause of new infections in the US

Whatever the risk was with delta, we would have to assume the risk would be two to three times greater with omicron, just as we’ve seen in other environments. Whatever that low risk — we don’t know what it is — on the airplane, it must be increased by a similar amount.

 What should passengers do to minimize the risks?

Avoid common-touch surfaces, hand hygiene wherever possible, masks, distancing, controlled-boarding procedures, try to avoid face-to-face contact with other customers, try to avoid being unmasked in flight, for meal and drink services, apart from when really necessary. The advice is the same, it’s just that the relative risk has probably increased, just as the relative risk of going to the supermarket or catching a bus has increased with omicron.