As restaurants, department stores and other local businesses grapple with operating at half occupancy (or less) to comply with social distancing guidelines, airlines are packing customers to near capacity on a reduced number of flights.
Why it matters: The practice shows how a lack of a national policy allows certain companies — like airlines — to continue to put Americans at risk for exposure to COVID-19 while other companies miss out on revenue by adhering to local regulations.
- “If you look back at SARS in 2003, this issue of planes being a spreader of the virus has been well-known,” Paul Tharp, an attorney specializing in negligence and liability at North Carolina’s Arnold & Smith law firm, tells Axios.
- Unless Congress passes rules shielding the airlines from liability — as Senate Republicans have discussed — they could face a complicated legal situation, Tharp adds.
How it works: In March, many airlines reduced the number of flights they offered by as much as 90% through the end of May, and as travel demand has picked up, they’ve simply loaded new passengers onto the few remaining scheduled flights.
- They could reinstate laid off pilots and restart flights in order to accommodate newly increased demand, but have chosen not to.
- “Airlines have very significant flexibility to adapt their route networks even during this extraordinary period,” a Department of Transportation spokesperson tells Axios.
The big picture: Policymakers have created local ordinances for land-based businesses and public transit services that require new layouts to reduce the number of people.
- Airlines have had no such oversight — and they’re seeing fewer customers simply because fewer people want to fly.
- As a result, they’ve created a patchwork of rules that are often merely suggestions.
Delta, for example, instituted a rule “capping seating at 50% capacity in first class and 60% capacity in the main cabin and keeping middle seats blocked.”
- American Airlines, on the other hand, has a policy to “not assign 50% of main cabin middle seats or seats near flight attendant jump seats.” However, it does not put a hard cap on bookings and maintains the right to “use those middle seats when necessary.”
- American’s representatives have told passengers that flights will only be booked at 50% capacity, but is not enforcing that cap and has been operating flights with nearly every seat filled.
- United said it will allow passengers to rebook or receive a travel credit if they end up on flights that are close to full capacity.
What they’re saying: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, sent a letter this week to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao urging her department to issue uniform national social distancing guidelines for the aviation sector.
- The guidance “should clearly lead the airlines to either keep middle or adjacent seats open, or limit capacity of aircraft to a level that allows adequate social distancing,” she says.
- Her letter referenced many outraged tweets from passengers on packed flights.
By the numbers: The aviation industry has been the economic sector most impacted by the lockdown in terms of activity.
- Net bookings were down 92% year over year, according to airline trade group Airlines for America; net booked revenue was down 98% for the week ended May 10.
- Transportation Security Administration agents screened 253,807 passengers on Sunday. That’s just 9.6% of the total from a year ago, but up 50% from the number of passengers on Sunday, April 26.
Source: https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-airlines-packed-flights-d926ddcd-62e2-4f5f-92e3-3da9b32576e4.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Dion Rabouin
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