We need cures/working vaccines etc or its all at your own calculated risk imo. Editorial Note: The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine and not provided by any bank including (but not limited to) American Express, Chase, Citibank, US Bank, Barclays or any other company. A United spokesman on Monday morning declined to comment on how many people were on Weiss' flight, saying that it "did have a higher than average load factor but it still departed with empty seats.". Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. Masks on airplanes: Where things stand on personal protection and social distancing. This site is for entertainment purpose only. Overall it’s statistically unlikely you’re seated next to someone with the virus, even on United (though less so perhaps out of their Newark hub). AA says it will instead alert passengers when their flights are getting full during the check-in process, giving them the chance to switch, free of charge, if their flight is eligible. 1 weather alerts 1 closings/delays 1 weather alerts 1 closings/delays There are still flights with more passengers than that from earlier sales, but the number of no shows at this point means they don’t even usually need volunteers for denied boarding. On Sunday, Transportation Security Administration agents screened 200,815 passengers -- 8% of the total from a year ago, according to the TSA. Join us on a 12-month journey to see them all. If they face forward and don’t speak that helps too. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. For those who must travel, these airlines aren’t doing a thing for you except to jam you into an airtight machine yet still charge you heavily to fly with them. There are ways to do it that give one the best chance of not being blown up, but there is always the chance one will be blown up. The option to ‘reschedule’, given reduced number of flights, may not even mean traveling later the same day. United Airlines recently announced that it was making some middle seats unavailable for passengers to select. Mandatory Face Covering? No, United has bucked the trend of Delta, JetBlue and others and is not blocking any seats … Oh and to not even provide bathroom cleaning after use (something that should have been done for years), is just another slap in the face. I understand we need to get back to work in order to get our economy back to shape but must it be at the expense of the traveler? "Though we cannot guarantee that all customers will be seated next to an unoccupied seat, based on historically low travel demand and the implementation of our various social distancing measures that is the likely outcome," the airline said in a statement to CNN. Blocked Middle Seat Guaranteed? If you are old and/or have comorbidities, you shouldn’t be flying in the flrst place. American Airlines is making headlines this week after it announced that it will be joining United “in filling flights to capacity as the number of travelers choosing to fly continues to rise.” Middle seats, in other words, will not be kept open. There were already so many. Through Jan. 6, 2021, Alaska is blocking middle seats. American Airlines is blocking off 50 percent of the main cabin middle seats on its aircraft, as well as any seats situated near the flight attendants’ jump seats. Instead, If you don’t want someone in a middle seat next to you, you don’t have to fly. Now, one of those airlines is rolling back the policy. The airline is so far the only U.S. airline to commit to blocking middle seats through the first quarter of 2021. Almost all U.S. carriers now require passengers to cover their faces onboard, and Alaska, Delta and Southwest each are capping ticket sales, effectively blocking middle seats, as detailed in my guide outlining distancing-related airline policies.. A number of readers have reached out to note that United… “Here’s How To Protect Yourself From COVID-19”. Like UA, AA has followed suit and begin to sell their middle seats, ensuring a full capacity ride. and you may end up dead 🙁 United isn't the only airline that can't guarantee social distancing on flights. I guess @united is relaxing their social distancing policy these days? But these two airlines are not the only ones doing this so I listed the others below with the dates they’ve committed to keeping the middle seat open. Advertiser Disclosure: Many (but not all) of the credit card offers on the site are from banks from which we receive compensation if you are approved. And if you must fly United then buy yourself a second seat. It turns out those same companies may not even be trying. And United Airlines, the third-biggest carrier, is maintaining the option of middle seat booking. Blocked Seats: Sun Country is not restricting access to middle seats or limiting capacity on board their flights. Delta and American Airlines are limiting the number of seats they’ll sell on each flight, to give customers confidence they can travel without having another passenger squeezed up next to them in a middle seat. When Boeing says a major airline will collapse by September, my money is on United. function FeedBlitz_38c1dd64e97a11e2a18900259077114bi(){var x=document.getElementsByName('FeedBlitz_38c1dd64e97a11e2a18900259077114b');for(i=0;i