We've seen social shaming of airlines for failing to block middle seats. Oddly people are shocked there would be others sitting near them on a plane. They're surprised the airline was selling them a ticket and selling tickets to other people, too.
The truth is that if you want to guarantee an empty seat beside you, you can buy one. And if you are concerned about sitting near other people it may not be a good idea to fly right now. Airlines are in a Catch-22 because they can't make money with social distancing on planes, but many customers won't buy tickets without it either.
Delta and JetBlue are blocking middle seats, American is blocking some middle seats, and United will try to tell you in advance if your flight is full so you have the option of changing (though many routes won't really given you enough flights nowadays to change).
A new front in the traveler shock and frustration over crowding in the coronavirus era is the airport security checkpoint, which became a big deal today at the end of a three day weekend despite travel still being down over 80%.
TRAVEL NIGHTMARE
Here's the current situation @CLTAirport on this Memorial Day. The line is wrapped and looping around the lobby for TSA. I'm told people are growing frustrated/missing flights. And I don't see much social distancing at all. @wcnc pic.twitter.com/NybOgM5Rh4
- Hunter Sáenz (@Hunt_Saenz) May 25, 2020
Here's another picture showing how bad the lines are backed up @CLTAirport. @wcnc pic.twitter.com/6UgZ2zr90s
- Hunter Sáenz (@Hunt_Saenz) May 25, 2020
Airports aren't built for social distancing. Each inch of space in the terminal has a high opportunity cost. Not to the same extent as on the aircraft itself, but rents in airports have historically been substantially higher than in their associated downtowns.
In fact most airports weren't even designed to accommodate post-9/11 security protocols. We often see TSA screening 'squeezed in' using suboptimal spaces. Nowhere is this more evident than at the New York LaGuardia Marine Air Terminal, or at Washington National in the B/C terminal where you check bags at the airline desk and then carry your own checked luggage around to be screened after being tagged by the airline.
Adapting makeshift airport security layouts for a COVID-19 distancing world, where there hasn't been the space built for this, isn't going to happen efficiently in the short run.
TSA staffing has been reduced. That's meant fewer security checkpoints open. They didn't scale back up for people traveling home at the end of Memorial Day weekend. TSA staffing frequently conflicts with the facts on the ground.
Do you really think that adding additional time into the screening process for likely illegal temperature checks, when people are bunched together like this, will be making air travel safer?
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