Virus Pandemic Reshaping Air Travel As Carriers Struggle

Melaku Gebermariam uses an electrostatic sprayer to disinfect the inside of a Delta Airplane between flights on July 22, at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va. U.S. airlines have scrambled to reassure travelers that planes are safe. They require passengers to wear face masks and are cleaning cabins more thoroughly, even spraying seats with anti-microbial mist. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)

In a bid to survive, airlines are desperately trying to convince a wary public that measures like mandatory face masks and hospital-grade air filters make sitting in a plane safer than many other indoor settings during the coronavirus pandemic.

It isn’t working.

Surveys indicate that instead of growing comfortable with air travel, more people are becoming skeptical about it. In the United States, airline bookings have stalled in the past month after slowly rising — a reaction to a new surge of reported virus infections.

Globally, air travel is down more than 85% from a year ago, according to industry figures.

The implications for the airline industry are grave. Several leading carriers already have filed for bankruptcy protection, and if the hoped-for recovery is delayed much longer, the list will grow.

The four largest U.S. airlines lost a combined $10 billion from April through June. Their CEOs say they will survive, but they have lowered their expectations for a rebound.

“We were all hoping that by the fall the virus might run its course,” said Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly. “Obviously, that has proven to be dead wrong.”

When Consumer Reports surveyed more than 1,000 people in June about their comfort with various activities during the pandemic, 70% said flying was very or somewhat unsafe. They rated going to a hospital emergency room or standing in line to vote as safer.

In a survey commissioned by an airline trade group, the biggest concern of travelers was the possibility of sitting next to an infected person.

John Kontak, a schoolteacher from Phoenix, said that was his fear as soon as he stepped onto a crowded American Airlines flight this summer to visit his parents in Ohio.

“I don’t know anything about this person who is sitting a foot away from me,” Kontak said. “They took the bottom line or the dollar over the safety of passengers. Next time, I’d rather drive back to Ohio than fly — it’s safer because I can control it.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says sitting within 6 feet (2 meters) of other passengers, often for hours, may increase the risk of getting COVID-19. But CDC also notes that most viruses and other germs don’t spread easily on flights because of how air circulates on planes.

Standard & Poor’s said this week that the industry’s prospects have gone “from bad to worse,” with global air traffic dropping by up to 70% this year. In May, S&P said a 55% drop was a worst-case scenario.

“It’s going to be a slower and more uneven recovery than one might have expected,” S&P analyst Philip Baggaley said.

An airline trade group, the International Air Transport Association, predicts carriers will lose $84 billion this year, making it the worst year in the industry’s history. The group says traffic won’t fully recover until 2024.

Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

Asia, where outbreaks were brought under control earlier, is doing better than the U.S. and Europe. Domestic travel inside China has recovered to about two-thirds its year-ago level. In the U.S., traffic is less than one-third of 2019 levels.

Air traffic at Europe’s more than 500 airports has tumbled, down 94% in June compared with the same month last year. There were about 4 million passengers, compared with 217 million a year earlier.

Travel ticked up when more than two dozen European countries opened borders to one another in early July, but virus cases are rising in several countries, leading to reimposed restrictions. This week, the U.K. imposed a 14-day quarantine requirement on travelers — even Britons returning home — from France and the Netherlands. Travel from outside Europe, including the United States, is still restricted.

In the United States, traffic picked up after collapsing by 95% in April but has stalled — down 74% in July, 72% in August.

Airlines came into this crisis in the best shape ever financially, thanks to rising demand for travel, reduced competition through mergers, and billions raised by extra fees.

Among international carriers, the big state-backed airlines are almost certain to survive. In Asia and the Middle East, they are often seen as vital contributors to the overall economy. Similarly, big European carriers including Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and British Airways may be too important to let fail.

It’s too late for U.K.-based Flybe; it shut down in March. Latin America’s two biggest airlines, Avianca and Latam, filed for bankruptcy protection. So did Aeromexico. Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia, both part of British mogul Richard Branson’s galaxy of companies, are using the courts to reset debts.

In the U.S., Trans States and Compass, which flew smaller planes for the major airlines, and Alaska-based Ravn Air shut down, but the big airlines have survived with billions in government aid and billions more in private borrowing.

U.S. airlines have scrambled to reassure travelers that planes are safe. They require passengers to wear face masks and are cleaning cabins more thoroughly, even spraying seats with anti-microbial mist.

“You can smell the cleaning fog that’s been done, and everything is wiped down basically top to bottom – chairs, window shades, even the light switches and overhead bins,” said Jason Bounds, a veteran flight attendant at Delta Air Lines.

The airlines split in one regard. Delta, Southwest, JetBlue and Alaska leave some seats empty to create room between passengers. United, American and Spirit do not, arguing that social distancing is impossible on a plane.

Most flights have plenty of empty seats, but scenes of full planes alarm travelers.

Carol Braddick, a business coach and consultant who splits her time between Phoenix and England, was so worried about the American Airlines leg of her journey to the U.K. that she sought out a COVID-19 test after arriving.

“The person I was sitting next to was drinking nonstop, shouting to his friend a row behind him; they were shouting back and forth,” Braddick said. “The combination of alcohol, shouting and no mask is unacceptable, and the flight attendant did nothing.”

Braddick put off plans for a couple of short holiday trips within Europe this summer.

“The new reality for us is fewer trips, longer stays, and being much more selective about which airline we’ll fly,” she said.

Even frequent flyers like Seth Miller, who writes about travel at his PaxEx.aero website, are grounding themselves.

“Much as I love and miss travel, it just doesn’t seem worth the risk to me,” he said.

By DAVID KOENIG and DAVID McHUGH___

Nathan Ellgren in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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David Koenig can be reached at www.twitter.com/airlinewriter.

@TraveloreReport on Twitter

Travelore News: American Airlines Will Book Flights To Full Capacity

DALLAS (AP) — American Airlines will start booking flights to full capacity next week, ending any effort to promote social distancing on its planes while the United States sets records for new reported cases of the coronavirus.

American’s move matches the policy of United Airlines but contrasts sharply with rivals that limit bookings to create space between passengers to minimize the risk of contagion.

The pilots’ union at American said it hopes that the airline reconsiders and instead decides to add more flights using idle planes and crews.

American said Friday that it will continue to notify customers if their flight is likely to be full, and let them change flights at no extra cost. The airline said it will also let passengers change seats on the plane if there is room and if they stay in the same cabin.

Since April, American has limited bookings to about 85% of a plane’s capacity by leaving about half the middle seats open. However, the airline will start selling every seat it can beginning next Wednesday.

Delta says it is capping seats at about 60% of capacity and Southwest at about 67%, both through Sept. 30. JetBlue says it will leave middle seats empty through July 31 unless the person is traveling with a passenger in an adjoining seat.

United, Spirit Airlines and now American, however, are taking a different approach, arguing that other steps — including stepped-up cleaning procedures and requiring all passengers to wear face coverings — eliminate the need to block some seats. United CEO Scott Kirby has said social distancing is impossible on planes anyway; that even with empty middle seats, people are less than six feet away from each other.

Photos and videos of full flights on American and United have drawn criticism for their lack of social distancing.

The number of confirmed new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 40,000 on Friday, eclipsing a record set on April 24, according to Johns Hopkins University. Several of American’s busiest airports are in states with skyrocketing infection rates, including Texas, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina.

American’s headquarters are in Fort Worth, Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday rolled back some steps the state had taken just two months ago in an aggressive attempt to re-open its economy.

The airline announced the change deep into a press release that was mostly devoted to measures it is taking to clean planes and kill the virus.

“As more people continue to travel, customers may notice that flights are booked to capacity starting July 1,″ American said. Starting Tuesday, American will ask passengers to confirm that they haven’t had COVID-19 symptoms in the previous 14 days.

Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Atmosphere Research Group, said American “is clearly putting its profitability ahead” of the health of both passengers and its own employees.

“Packing an airplane 100% full without health testing in place is a risky business decision. If someone contracts the COVID-19 virus on a 100% full plane, they’re going to sue American Airlines,” Harteveldt said. “Just because another airline is doing it doesn’t mean it’s the right business decision.”

But another expert, travel agent Brett Snyder, who writes a blog called Cranky Flier, said American probably has data to back up its decision from a business perspective.

“If they are making this change to sell every seat, then they know that people talk a lot” about preferring empty middle seats, “but in the end they will still fly if the price is right,” Snyder said.

Since April, American offered to rebook people whose flights might be full, but only about 4% of passengers have taken that option, according to the airline.

Snyder said most people flying now are leisure travelers who have decided that it’s an acceptable risk. He said rules on face masks, extra cleaning measures, and high-efficiency air-filtration systems make planes “a relatively safe place.”

Airlines have been devastated by the pandemic, as travel dropped by about 95% at its low point in April. Since then, traffic has picked up slightly — the number of people passing through security checkpoints at U.S. airports on Thursday was 77% lower than the comparable day a year ago.

American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said the airline has been considering booking to full capacity for a few weeks as passenger numbers have risen. On Monday, American’s traffic was the highest since March, he said.

A spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American’s pilots, said the move could hurt the public’s already fragile confidence in flying.

“We were shocked. I can’t imagine a worse time to tell passengers that the airplanes they may be on will be completely full,” said the union spokesman, Dennis Tajer.

American has plenty of planes that have been grounded because of the pandemic, and it has idle pilots and flight attendants who must remain on the payroll through September as a condition of federal financial aid. If a flight will be full, “Why wouldn’t you just put another airplane on?” Tajer asked.

American is adding flights. Including its American Eagle regional subsidiary, the airline has scheduled 3,479 flights for July, a 60% jump over June but still 48% below last July’s schedule.

Airlines have struggled to balance concern about safety during the pandemic with their need to sell tickets. Airline revenue has plummeted since early March, forcing the carriers to rely on billions in federal aid and private borrowing to survive until travel recovers, which might not happen until there is a vaccine.

Frontier Airlines tried to charge passengers extra to guarantee they would be next to an empty middle seat. The budget airline was forced to retreat last month amid accusations that it was trying to profit from people’s fear of contracting a deadly virus.

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By David Koenig, at twitter.com/airlinewriter