The national carriers in the former Yugoslavia, which are suffering from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic along with the rest of the industry, will have to enforce social distancing measures on aircraft once more widespread air travel resumes, which will likely include leaving the middle seat on aircraft empty. Currently, both Air Serbia and Montenegro Airlines are only operating repatriation flights, while Croatia Airlines maintains a daily service to Frankfurt. The European Commission will next month present a set of rules for the safe reopening of air travel, including social distancing in airports and planes. Alexandre de Juniac, IATA's director general, said this is likely to include a requirement to leave the middle seat vacant on flights.
Airlines have already raised concerns that measures to slow the spread of the pandemic could blight profitability long after travel restrictions end. However, blocking middle seats could also help to head off a potential price war as airlines try to recoup market share as they emerge from the crisis. Wizz Air, which boasts bases in Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, has already confirmed it will block its middle seat on aircraft. “We would basically be blocking a third of the airplanes, so a 180-seater would become a 120-seater, and the 230-seater would become more like a 160-seater”, Wizz Air’s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, said.
easyJet has also come out in support of the measure, saying it plans to keep the middle seat on its planes empty to allow for social distancing. CEO Johan Lundgren said he hoped the seating measure would encourage more people to fly. However, Ryanair’s Chief Executive, Michael O’Leary, warned the low cost airline would not return to flying if governments insist planes leave their middle seats empty when travel restrictions are lifted following the coronavirus pandemic. “We can’t make money on 66% load factors. Even if you do that, the middle seat doesn’t deliver any social distancing, so it’s kind of an idiotic idea that doesn’t achieve anything anyway”, he said.
Corona is transmitted through air and a plane is basically a pressurized tube. If one person onboard is infected by the time the plane lands everyone will be as well. Social distancing in these instances does not work.
ReplyDeleteoh dear calm down
DeleteThis is not true at all. This is supported by the fact that there were instances where people had the virus on a plane and no one else got sick. Air in the plane is purified. The bigger chance of contracting a virus on the plane is from touching toilet door knobs and tray tables.
DeleteWhatever is credible, flying will become risky. (шта сте летели, летели ... )
DeleteJust look at the repatriation flight MAD-LJU : 2 pax were confirmed positive and non of the rest from the same flight...
DeleteTrue. And just before traffic stopped a passenger tested positive on a packed Turkish Airlines flight to LJU and no one was infected.
DeleteAre you sure everyone was tested? Slovenia lacked tests for a long time. They probably did it for those who looked suspicious.
DeleteIt is a different thing if you sit in the vicinity of an infected person for 1 hour or 10 on a long haul flight. That increases infection risk exponentially.
DeleteAnon 13:57
DeletePax were all sent to 14 day hotel quarantine and tested
Apart from being flying experts, now everyone is suddenly a health/virology expert too. It's better you stick to flying guys and leave the health advice to doctors.
DeleteI have to say I completely agree with O’Leary. This stupid measure will do nothing more but make airlines bleed more money.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteTightly squeezed people, be it on a plane or on a bus, is a recipe for disaster. A 2-meter distance is a proven measure. It doesn't 100% prevent the transmission of the virus but it reduces it significantly. An empty middle seat gives less than 1 meter which is far from ideal but much better than nothing. If a person occupying the window seat is infected and the middle seat, the one occupying the aisle seat will have good chance to avoid contracting the virus. But if another big guy gets in the middle then there is a strong chance that all three would end up infected - especially in sardine cans known as 'low cost' passenger cabins. Wearing a mask should also be mandatory for all passengers. Airlines should be obliged to provide one mask and a pair of gloves at check-in.
DeleteAlmost forgot: an awarded virologist and a graduated epidemiologist Michael O'Leary can go to hell together with his airline.
Yet no one blocked seats on repatriation flights.
DeleteHow are airlines going to purchase masks for each passenger? Here in Spain you can barely masks in the pharmacy and can buy 3 at most. When they do appear they are sold out within an hour.
Deleteknowing that a measure does not prevent it from being made an official requirement: look at all the stupid meassures that are impemented here where all officials know that they will not help anything (desinfecting streets, desinfection tunnels, total curfews for >=65/<=18 people)
DeleteI don’t think it will be a major issue for ex-Yu airlines. I doubt the planes will be very full so it’s not an issue to block the middle seat.
ReplyDeleteas if any exyu airlines flew with a LF bigger then 2/3
ReplyDeletebut i see an issue for the lcc
I would be really interested to know how many passengers Croatia Airlines has on these Frankfurt flights.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me social distancing isn’t a major issue on these flights.
DeleteFriend was on one of those and she said they were about 15. OU probably doesn't care since the state is covering the losses.
DeleteWell to be honest, that's more than I was expecting. Do they use the Q400 on these flights?
DeleteI think they use A319, maybe because of cargo?
DeleteThey are using a mixture of all aircraft Q400, A319 and A320. To me it seems they wan't to keep all their planes active and get some flying time since various registrations are being used on these FRA flight (not just one plane)
DeleteThat's interesting. Is it economical to have more or less your entire fleet active with just one flight a week?
DeleteYes it is, because you cannot just stop using an aircraft. JU is doing the same. Here's a nice video explaining the nitty-gritty of storing an aircraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnpUNEWP1i8
DeleteInteresting. Thanks
DeleteTravel will certainly change as we know it.
ReplyDeleteDon’t understand how Wizz and Easy are all for it but Ryanair isn’t.
ReplyDeletetheory: Wizz and Easy are on break-even with planes two/thirds-full. ryanair isnt
DeleteWell FR is the most successful among them, they know what they are doing. Wizz Air is even getting a bailout from the UK government. lol
DeleteAnd that after they criticized everyone for asking for state aid.
DeleteHypocrisy to say the least.
DeleteWell Wizz CEO also said they wouldn't fire anyone and that jobs are safe and then a week later they fired a 1000 people.
DeleteThey are still selling tickets in the middle seat too, if you go and book a ticket.
DeleteVaradi will not stick to his own words unless governments will make him to. He will happily sell tickets for the middle seats as well to avoid bankruptcy of Wizz. His bluff of "everything will be back to normal by May" was a huge failure. Getting a government loan after bashing airlines asking for bailout is outright disgusting. He is merely trying to speak up the stock price of Wizz, quite unsuccessfully...
DeleteAt that time he did not know that you can take money from government (taxpayers) and still give shareholders their dividends....than he discovered that BMW, VW and many many others did right that (while employees were laid off and on social incomes too) and he was pleasantly surprised! What an opportunity, who would miss it...
DeleteThis is bad news for airlines. No prospect of any recovery in the short term.
ReplyDeleteHow does someone try to sell a helicopter using the wrong image?
ReplyDelete?
DeleteThe ad I was seeing, Selling the the new AH-1Z Cobra but they were using the image of a Puma. Maybe others are seeing a different ad. Never mind.
DeleteAnd in the future, the crew will looks like the one on the picture.
ReplyDeleteSo what happens if an airline uses a turbo prop and those have no middle seats? Anyway, there should be a time when we go back to normal. It's impossible just to remain locked forever.....
ReplyDeleteThen the seat next to you is supposed to be left empty. I agree with you though. This can't go on forever.
DeleteIf this really materializes, then at least with the LH Group we would be flying in business class for the price of an economy ticket- because that is what they sell as business class on continental routes: an economy seat with a free middle seat.
ReplyDeleteThe only issue is that this will drive up prices for tickets.
DeleteWhy LH group? Almost every continental network airline on the world does it this way.
DeleteThat blocking the middle seat measure is ridiculous. Okay lets accept that theory, what about the person that seats in front of you or behind you in the window seat or in the aisle seat, the distance is about 80 centimeters, or the distance between those persons that seats lets say at seats 5C and 5D, also the width of the corridor is about 80 centimeters. So it's time to be serious and the airlines must suggest another solution or don't fly at all.
ReplyDeleteThe corridor is less than 50cm.
DeleteI am a wheelchair user, having a 53cm wide wheelchair, that is too wide for the corridor.
So, the distance between people across a row is less than 1 meter.
What they are trying to achieve (social distancing) won’t work unless they block off the seats directly behind and in front of each occupied seat.
ReplyDeleteIf they did that then they might as well not fly at all.
Deletewhoever coined the term "social distancing" is a moron. I distance myself physically and yet I am not distancing myself socially since I am in regular contact with friends, colleagues & family. So, it is physical distancing and not "social distancing"
DeleteI can't believe I'll say this, but MOL is right. It's a stupid idea. After four months, we still no nothing concrete about the virus (immunity, true mortality,...). So we either implement eternal quarantine (and destroy numerous businesses along the way) or we get back to our normal (more or less) lives. Airlines won't survive by having load factors less than 67%.
ReplyDeletepeople are going to have to accept that we are all going to have to live with covid for a long time… this social distancing crap is so useless. In theory it makes sense, but the application just doesn’t work.
ReplyDeleteThe distancing is actually by far the best and as a matter of fact ONLY really useful measure against this and also any other virus. But all other measures are pretty much useless and should stop asap.
DeleteThe only solution would be to install business/first class seats with dividers in between each seat!
ReplyDeleteactually not a bad idea, at least some tick curtain or plastic that can be replaced after each flight can be installed between each 3 rows of the seats
Deletethere will be a new tax 1.00 EUR tax implemented to cover the cost of the masks that will be provided to the passengers
ReplyDeleteI'd rather expect something like 5 EUR per leg so airlines can earn 4.5 EUR out of that. They will mark it as a corona tax for masks, disinfection goods and for additional cleaning, bla bla.
DeleteSame as every carrier does when using the YQ tax which of course is not a tax at all but a 100% non refundable income for the airline which should be banned but governments and air industry organizations couldn't care less.
here are the new chairs
ReplyDeletehttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-what-air-travel-could-look-like-in-a-post-coronavirus-world-2020-04-21
Oh my goodness. R they insane? Who would want to sit on that middle seat, maybe at 75% discount or more I would start thinking about it, but only maybe...
DeleteI do not understand one major thing.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this all specific to airplanes and why are there no EU regulations for busses, trains, trams, people from different households riding together in the same car??? At least I can't find anything about those other means of transport on google or other media.
Why does again air travel and tourism need to be punished and not other forms of travel?
Obviously these measures will apply to other forms of public transport like rail and busses. If you want to find out more, subscribe to the forums/blogs that are devoted to those industries. Aviation provides it's own unique set of challenges due to the specific features of the passenger journey through an airport - namely check-in, security, boarding, the airplane itself and lastly baggage hall. The general consensus is that airports will be able to operate to (at most) 50% of it's pre-Covid capacity until a vaccine is developed.
DeleteBusses? Guys, your English is amazing, haha! One bus, two buses!
DeleteThem businesses cannot be compared to AVIATION, which is a billion euro industry. It's the same like comparing Ikarbus or Eurolines to Jat or germanwings.
DeleteThe aviation industry MUST be saved and protected! End of story.
Maybe we need to bring back filtering the air like they did when we had smoking on flight. I have read a bunch of articles in the past saying the air on aircraft was much 'cleaner' back when smoking was aloud.
ReplyDeleteWell air travel will become expensive, only the airlines backed by governments will be able to fly, low cost airlines will be in serious trouble, some might fold. Bad news for the traveling public
ReplyDeleteThe corridor seats should be blocked, not only the middle seats. Corridor John Does are vectors to everyone who passes through the corridor. People on window seats wearing masks are the only option.
ReplyDelete