Delta, for one, will continue to block middle seats through September 30. In a recent earnings call, however, CEO Ed Bastian said he “expect[s] to continue our policy beyond that date as well.”
“I’d rather have more flights back and more seats into the market in a safe way than trying to maximize the number of people you can put on an individual airplane,” he added.
Southwest says it will continue to block middle seats through at least October.
But other major airlines, such as United, Spirit, and American, abandoned the policy on July 1. (Although if your flight is almost or completely full, they will give you the option to switch flights. When I flew in June, American emailed me two days before my flight: “We’re expecting your flight will be busy and are giving you a chance to change flights at no charge. You can move to a flight that currently has more space if your plans are flexible.”)
This noncommittal approach to social distancing has caught the eye of Washington. On July 23, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon introduced the Maintaining Important Distance During Lengthy Epidemics, or M.I.D.D.L.E act. If passed, it would require airlines to block middle seats unless passengers are a family traveling together.
Merkley spearheaded the bill after his own experience on a packed plane. “Filling planes to capacity, forcing passengers to sit shoulder to shoulder for hours at a time, is incredibly irresponsible during a pandemic,” he said in a statement. “I’ve seen with my own eyes that airlines are willing to put their profit margins ahead of the health of their customers. If taxpayers are going to bail out airlines because they provide an essential service, it is not too much to expect the airlines not to make the pandemic worse.”
On Twitter, photos of packed plane cabins have gone viral. Passengers (including Senator Ted Cruz) have been pictured not wearing masks or, only marginally less egregious, not covering their nose. These images have been greeted with confusion—weren’t airlines supposed to enforce regulations against, well, all of this?—and outrage. After all, air travel contributed to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the first place. Don’t they have a duty to make sure they aren’t adding more fuel to the pandemic fire?
Some airlines simply say that vacant middle seats don’t have as much of a health impact as one might think. They dismiss the decision for vacant middle seats as “a P.R. tactic.”
“When you’re on board the aircraft, if you’re sitting in the aisle, and the middle seat is empty, the person across the aisle is within six feet from you, the person at the window is within six feet of you, the people in the row in front of you are within six feet of you, the people in the row behind you are within six feet of you,” said Josh Earnest, United’s chief communications officer, on a call with reporters.
However, a widely circulated (albeit not peer-reviewed) study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found “a measurable reduction in COVID-19 risk when middle seats on aircraft are deliberately kept open.”
With so much, well, up in the air, perhaps another safety measure should become commonplace instead: COVID-19-testing stations at airports.
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July 24, 2020 at 09:57PM
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Inside the Middle Seat Debate That’s Defining Mid-Pandemic Travel - Vogue
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