Airlines say it’s safe to travel. But is it really?
Masks for passengers, limited seating among precautions being taken
Airlines and airports around the world are doing everything they can to instill confidence that it is safe to fly again, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Airlines are requiring face masks for passengers and staff, imposing new aircraft cleaning procedures, using social distancing to board flights, blocking middle seats on planes and, in one case, even prohibiting passengers from lining up to use plane bathrooms.
As to the airports, they are screening passengers’ temperatures through high- and lowtech means; using biometric screening to speed check-in, security and customs and immigration processes; and using autonomous robots to clean terminal floors.
But none of it is consistent. And it’s unclear whether the measures are enough.
Will social distancing measures work, for instance, when travellers are sitting on planes for hours with strangers? Temperature checks may identify those already ill, but how do you screen for the virus when, by some estimates, 35 per cent of people with it are asymptomatic and 40 per cent of transmission occurs before people feel sick?
“So much is uncertain right now,” said Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research Group, a San Francisco travel analysis firm. “Do airports and airlines need to invest in something long term that will be permanent, like airport security, or are these shortterm, tactical responses?
“This uncertainty, combined with unnecessary variation from airport to airport in health screening processes, ends up with confused consumers not being confident enough to take a trip,” Harteveldt said. “They will travel only when it’s necessary, rather than when they want to, whether it’s for business or pleasure.”
The International Air Transport Association, the trade group for the global airline industry, laid out what it called a “road map” for restarting aviation last month. It recommended “layered” measures that would be “globally implemented and mutually recognized by governments.” These included preflight passenger contact tracing; temperature screening as travellers arrived at airports; use of masks by passengers; masks and personal protective equipment for airline and airport staff; self-service, touchless options for check-in and baggage drop-off; and electronically processed customs procedures.
But it rejected some airlines’ policy of blocking off airplanes’ middle seats because, it said, “the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from one passenger to another passenger on board is very low.”
And while the air transport association may have hoped its guidelines would reassure travellers, Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, a multimillion-mile frequent flyer and a principal of 777 Partners, an investment firm, said they ignored the “critical question that has to be answered: How can I be assured only nonspreaders of COVID-19 will be allowed on the aircraft with me?”
One policy widely required by airlines is the use of masks or facial coverings by passengers and staff. At some carriers flight attendants are wearing what are essentially haz-mat suits.
American, United and Southwest Airlines, among others, have enhanced their aircraft cleaning programs, while most modern aircraft use HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filters, also used in hospital operating rooms, that extract virtually all microbes and viruses from cabin air. Still, there’s no proof the filters can fully protect travellers from the coronavirus.
Ryanair, the low-cost, Dublinbased carrier, which plans to resume 40 per cent of its regular service on July 1, opposes blocking middle seats. It has also established one of the most unusual new policies: It plans to prohibit “queuing for toilets” during flights, though “toilet access will be made available to individual passengers upon request.”
Delta Air Lines is not only requiring face masks, but it is also sanitizing check-in kiosks and counters, baggage stations and security station bins at airports, as well as disinfecting gate areas, jet bridges and employee areas.
In addition, it is sanitizing aircraft lavatories, overhead bin handles, tray tables and seatback screens before every flight. It is also temporarily blocking middle seats; cutting back food and beverage offerings to “reduce service touchpoints”; and replacing HEPA filters twice as often as recommended by the manufacturer.
Frontier, Air France and Singapore Airlines, among others, are performing temperature checks of passengers. Etihad is doing a trial with volunteers at Abu Dhabi International Airport of a contactless, self-service kiosk to measure temperature, heart and respiratory rate.
Both Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport will soon use employees to test a screener that combines an infrared camera and artificial intelligence to read their temperature.
Two technology companies, SITA and Collins Aerospace, are promoting touchless initiatives for airports that use biometric facial recognition and mobile technologies for checkin, baggage drop-off, security screening and boarding.
The use of biometric screening continues to be debated, at least in the United States and Europe. Although O’NeilDunne and Harteveldt support the screening, Harteveldt suggested that whoever uses the technology must operate “at the highest level of data security” to insure passengers’ health information is kept secure.
O’Neil-Dunne said passengers might have to be more flexible about privacy, to protect their own and others’ health.
“Ethics are fine when ethics are all that matters,” he said. “In this case, it’s a pandemic virus. You’re not just dealing with individual rights, you’re dealing with fellow passengers’ basic human rights, and I think that has precedence.”