Southwest Airlines has had one of the most generous seat blocking policies during the pandemic, but that will finally be changing. As of December 1, 2020, Southwest Airlines will stop blocking seats on flights. For the past several months and through November 30, the airline is capping flights at 67% of capacity, meaning that no…
Continue reading: Southwest Will Stop Blocking Seats On December 1, 2020
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I have flight on Dec 1 with Alaska air, when I booked it, middle seats wasn't blocked but now it's showing middle seats are blocked. Maybe they are expending policy w/o official notice?
Social distancing at the during boarding and deplaning - necessary for your safety!!! Once seated you can be shoulder to shoulder with a stranger - completely safe!!! It's either safe or it's not. Which is it?
@MG its about the airflow. When you are boarding and deboarding the AC packs are not running and so you don't have the top to bottom airflow that exists to reduce the spread of the virus. When you have the AC packs running coupled with the HEPA filters, the chance of spread is next to nothing as we see by the fact any time there is spread from an aircraft it makes the news because of its rarity.
@Chris so how does that logic apply to the gate area where they have every other seat blocked off? Or how about the 6 foot markers throughout the terminal? All for safety, right? This "science-backed" argument can't work both ways - that you have to social distance everywhere BUT on the actual plane in order to be safe.
Really "our lives are worth nothing" are comments lacking any facts or intelligence. The chance of getting COVID on an airplane and then dying is a percentage next to nil. How about this? Airlines will now forever block middle seats and raise fares high enough to still be profitable. The same morons screaming "they're killing us" will now scream the "airlines are ripping us off."
No one forces you to fly. If you think it's a danger to your health don't fly.
social distancing is very very important. We must continue to wear the mask very diligently.
and sanitize the hands, important!!
Not surprised. When SWA announced pay cuts coming on 1/1/2021, this had to be the next step. You can't cut pay for your employees when you aren't doing everything you can to increase revenue at the same time. The unions would never stop banging that drum and employees wouldn't forget anyway.
No one is completely safe, whether it be before, during, or after COVID-19. Life carries risk. A very inconvenient and scary truth indeed.
But I think Southwest is misrepresenting their decision. It's about the bottom line, not about safety. It's also about the completely dysfunctional government that is unable to pass any more covid-19 relief.
Finally!...In order to meet the social distance guidelines you would be seated in a window seat with both seats to your left blocked, two seats forward of you and two seats rear also blocked. That's 14 seats empty around each person in a 3x3 configured aircraft. It was a social band aid to appease the same idiots that jump up and stand heel to toe for ten minutes waiting to depart the aircraft.
I’m surprised and disappointed that WN didn’t extend this through the Holidays. If already doing it for Thanksgiving, it wouldn’t hurt to do it an extra few weeks. I think so many people get stuck in the physiological aspects of spacing, they forget about the psychological aspects of returning to being on top of each other suddenly. I don’t think blocked middle seats are essential, but it has been a nice differentiator at this weird time. The same studies that show no evidence of significant transmission on planes make the case for not requiring mask wearing on planes due to limited airborne spread in aircraft. Are we going to see airlines remove mask requirements soon? I doubt it. The only reason to stop blocking middle seats is to make more money. I don’t see airlines being as fast to drop mask requirements since there’s no financial gain.
if you dont want to sit next to someone on a plane then dont fly, pretty simple. If you dont have a problem with it then fly, not sure what the big deal is.
The science says it doesn't help? Not true.
3 main ways of spread.
1. Large droplets. Masks, especially the surgical masks (which are no longer in short supply) help. So does social distancing.
2. Airborne. Social distancing is not quite enough but more distance is needed. Any distance helps. Filtering the air helps but not completely. This is a tough problem to solve.
3. Touching stuff. This is the least of the three but is a way to transmit.
Thank God. Every airline did it to satisfy the scared people who still show up to fly in a mask, face shield, goggles, and a hazmat suit. Or like a lady I saw not too long ago on a flight, wearing a scuba mask and snorkel with her mask. A row of 3 seats is barely 6 feet across so social distancing wasn't ever the reason for it, it was PR. American and United realized this a while back and started selling to capacity with little to no adverse effects PR-wise.
Insomuch as it makes people feel less safe flying (and it will), this isn't a profit-maximizing move for WN, sadly. People just won't fly at all, especially as cases spike.
@Chris UA started operating the packs during boarding/deplaning about a month ago in order to provide the best possible airflow/filtration during those times.