It’s Not the Airplane, It’s the Airport

By Robert McGarvey

Many of us lately are consumed with one question: to fly or not to fly?  And in my case that has led me to catalog, perhaps exhaustively, the many failings of airplanes and carriers regarding sanitation, from filthy tray tables and restrooms to a failure to block middle row seating and a failure to enforce requirements for facemasks.  

But just maybe my eyes are on the wrong problem.

Carriers, if they have the will, probably can defeat Covid-19 on board. The CDC, in a travel bulletin, tells where the weak spots are: “Most viruses and other germs do not spread easily on flights because of how air circulates and is filtered on airplanes. However, social distancing is difficult on crowded flights, and you may have to sit near others (within 6 feet), sometimes for hours. This may increase your risk for exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19.”

The antidote is to in fact provide social distancing (fewer passengers) and also require facemasks.  If enough of us spurn air travel, carriers – for profit businesses with demanding shareholders – will do what needs doing to persuade us to fly again. And carriers already are showing signs of doing more.

And then my eyes land on this in the CDC travel bulletin: “Air travel requires spending time in security lines and airport terminals, which can bring you in close contact with other people and frequently touched surfaces.”

The average airport today is about as busy as a graveyard at midnight on a Monday but that will change.  There will be long lines – lots of people! – at security, check in, even the food courts. 

Thus this worrisome Travel Weekly article: “Airports prepare for crowding challenges.”

The article noted: “If we can’t make a safe, healthy and comfortable passenger experience coming out of this, we are going to end up with a protracted downturn,” said Chris Oswald, senior vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the trade group Airports Council International — North America. Oswald said airports are “very concerned” about the difficulties that await when they must balance social distancing with traffic.

You got that right.

But can we trust airports to do the right thing?

The New York Times reported: “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.”

There are the problems: Does what airports do actually work? And the money question – what will they do when the first busy travel days hit them (Thanksgiving?)?

Some airports – mainly abroad – are busy putting tape on the floor and signs on the walls to remind passengers to stay 1.5 meters (6 ft.) apart. But will they?

Germans might in Munich Airport. But what about the restive crowds at EWR?

Will they follow the guidelines when there are more of us in the airport?

Some airports – Hong Kong for instance –  require a coronavirus test when a passenger lands.  But so far that is not a widely adopted protocol. No US airport has anything that rigorous and it is hard to see same, not this year.

Exactly how much testing and surveillance will passengers – especially US citizens – tolerate?  Right now much of the US seems intent on prematurely overthrowing land-based social distancing guidelines (at restaurants, barber shops, etc).  That they will obey strict distancing rules in airports is unlikely.

Where does this leave us? Basically to believe airports are safe we need to believe public and quasi public entities will in fact enforce protocols that might inconvenience many flyers but will keep us safer than if we did not have them.

And we have to believe almost all flyers will follow the guidelines.

In a country where many of us proudly report we don’t wear facemasks – despite the evidence that wearing them keeps everybody a little safer – it is difficult to believe government entities will insist upon and enforce the same sanitation protocols (such as wearing facemasks) at airports around the country.

It is impossible to believe just about all of us will in fact obey guidelines regarding social distancing and mandatory facemasks at airports.

And that is why I now believe it is airports that will keep me from a quick return to flying.  Many of us are determined to ignore commonsense and medical evidence, too many governments will appease that attitude, and the upshot is that it we ourselves who will be making our airports unsafe for flyers.