Pocan slams American and United for full flights
Wisconsin’s Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan slammed American Airlines and United Airlines for filling flights at full capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic in a letter he sent on Wednesday to the companies’ CEOs.
“You both took a significant bailout (through the CARES stimulus bill) from U.S. taxpayers this year to help your airlines,” Pocan wrote to American Airlines CEO William Douglas Parker and United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. “Your thanks? You’ve decided to cram those same taxpayers like sardines into a twisted petri dish experiment to maximize your profits.”
To stem the spread of coronavirus, many airlines had blocked the middle seats on flights and stopped booking flights to full capacity. But American stopped blocking half of the middle seats in its airplanes and began booking flights to capacity again on July 1.
“We believe it is safe to go back to our normal capacity” and passengers will be notified if their flights are mostly full, an American spokesperson told USA TODAY in late June.
United Airlines said in May it would start notifying passengers if their flights were more than 70% full. Kirby has said that keeping six feet between passengers for social distancing is impossible.
Pocan disagrees, echoing remarks last month by health officials in a Senate hearing on June 30.
“At the end of this pandemic, passengers will recall which carriers operated as safely as possible and which carriers chose to unnecessarily jeopardize passenger health,” Pocan wrote. “Your legacies as leaders of your airlines are being written now, and it appears they will be tarnished.”
He called on the airlines to change their policies: “You can still reverse course and choose to protect the traveling public.”
In a postscript, Pocan wrote, “It is neither ‘American’ or standing ‘United’ with the people who’ve bailed out your industry — the taxpayers — to throw them under the proverbial flying airbus to make a few extra bucks.”
On their websites, both airlines say they require most passengers to wear face masks at all times on flights and that they have introduced more intensive cleaning procedures at the gate and on planes. They are also both offering more flexible flight change policies.