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Southwest Airlines No Longer Social Distancing On Flights, Selling Tickets To Fill Every Seat
Southwest Airlines is no longer social distancing on its flights. On Tuesday, the airline began selling tickets to fill every seat on board its planes, including middle seats. The move comes after the airline announced a $1.2 billion third-quarter loss because of the pandemic. (philadelphia.cbslocal.com) Altro...
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I think this is a poor PR move on Southwest’s part as infection rates are spiking across the country. I’m sure the middle seat being vacant or occupied is low on every traveler’s list of concerns, but having this headline out there right now brings unnecessary negative attention to the airline.
There seems to be debate about the efficacy of air filtration systems within the aircraft filtering coronavirus. I know where the seat inflow is, but where are the seat return ducts? Near the floor or ceiling close to the seats, and are they continuously along the cabin, or just a few widely spaced? So I don’t know if the centre seat occupation makes a difference in the air contamination. However, filling all the seats vs 66% of them does increase the odds that there will be at least one covid positive person on an aircraft. Personally, I am not taking the chance. Certainly the plane is a risk, but then there is also the check-in line, the baggage collection and maybe the customs line also. Thanks, but no thanks.
Well, WE all knew that leaving the Middle Seats VACANT was never going to last too long.
I applaud any step back to normality, even the first baby steps!
You can hardly call this a step to normality. All it does is give a potential traveller different options for travel. One can choose to travel on an airline attempting social distancing or one which does not bother with social distancing. Normality, whatever that is, is still very distant.
rico..this is not a return to "normality",nor "normalcy"...this is purely for monetary reasons because despite the slight uptick in travel over thanksgiving,people are still not travelling as much as they were prior to the pandemic..which,by the way,is getting worse daily both in in death counts and in hopsitilzations...
In the mean time, 2020 shows a global population growth. Source WHO
