Airlines say it’s safe to travel, but is it?

Chennai

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 low-tech 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 travelers 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 percent of people with it are asymptomatic and 40 percent 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 short-term, 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,” Mr. 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 travelers 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 travelers, Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, a multimillion-mile frequent flier 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 non-spreaders of COVID-19 will be allowed on the aircraft with me?” The only way to be certain, he said, “is to test in the nasal cavity for the virus.”

Further, Robert Crandall, a former president and chairman of American Airlines, called the association’s suggestion that onboard infection is unlikely “nonsense, since atmospheric inhalation is the primary means of transmission.” One policy widely required by airlines is the use of masks or facial coverings by passengers and staff. At some carriers — including Qatar Airways, Philippines Airlines and AirAsia — flight attendants are wearing what are essentially hazmat 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 travelers from the coronavirus. The transport association’s guidelines notwithstanding, some carriers — particularly those in the United States and Europe — are leaving middle seats on flights empty for the time being, to enforce social distancing.

— Levere is a journalist with NYT© 2020, The New York Times