(CNN) — The calendar year is off to a rough start for air vacationers.

Prevalent cancellations, tied in part to the distribute of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus amongst airline crews, have piled up in excess of Christmas and into 2022.

And the remarkably transmissible variant has once all over again intensified personalized danger calculations all over regimen functions — which includes air travel.

A person silver lining for those people who are traveling in the initial few months of 2022: Airfares are down.

Here is wherever things stand for air vacationers as 2022 will get underway:

Omicron is complicating all the things

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is up to 3 moments extra infectious than the Delta variant, the US Facilities for Sickness Command and Prevention claimed Tuesday.

So is the chance of air vacation higher with Omicron?

“Difficult to say due to the fact it relies upon on whether you are talking about infection or hospitalization,” explained Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who scientific studies how viruses travel in the air.

“Undoubtedly, the danger of finding contaminated is better simply because Omicron is so quickly transmissible and partly escapes the vaccine, but the chance of hospitalization may not be drastically distinctive if you are vaccinated and boosted,” Marr said by means of e-mail.

“The relative hazard has almost certainly enhanced, just as the relative danger of going to the grocery store or catching a bus has elevated with Omicron,” Powell reported.

The statement highlights the fee of air exchange and filtration and the path of air flow in plane cabins as components that lead to the reduced-danger surroundings.

Key professional jets have ventilation systems with superior-excellent HEPA filters able of eradicating small airborne particles,…