IATA: Empty middle seats are not the way forward

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said there is no evidence that blocking the use of middle seats on aircraft will help to limit the spread of coronavirus on board aircraft and is instead backing the use of masks or face coverings to protect passengers and crew during flights.

IATA agrees that measures will need to be taken to ensure the risk of onboard transmission remains as low as possible. It is backing the mandatory wearing of face masks or nose-and-mouth coverings by all passengers and crew as one method of moving forward with safe flying.

Director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said: “The safety of passengers and crew is paramount. The aviation industry is working with governments to restart flying when this can be done safely. Evidence suggests that the risk of transmission on board aircraft is low. And we will take measures – such as the wearing of face coverings by passengers and masks by crew – to add extra layers of protection. We must arrive at a solution that gives passengers the confidence to fly and keeps the cost of flying affordable. One without the other will have no lasting benefit.”

In addition to face coverings, IATA is recommending other biosecurity measures such as temperature screening of passengers, airport workers and travellers; boarding and deplaning procedures that reduce contact with other passengers or crew; limiting movement within the cabin during flight; more frequent and deeper cabin cleaning; and simplified catering procedures that lower cabin crew movement and interaction with passengers. Ultimately, IATA wants to see testing for Covid-19 or immunity passports used as temporary measures when these procedures have been proven at scale.

However, IATA said it does not recommend restricting use of the middle seat to create social distancing on board, saying even if the measure is mandated it will not achieve the recommended separation for social distancing of 1-2m, as the average seat width is only 50cm.

Furthermore, the association said using social distancing measures on aircraft would slash airlines’ maximum load factor to 62 per cent – below the average industry “breakeven” load factor of 77 per cent. With fewer seats to sell, IATA said, “unit costs would rise sharply”, by between 43 and 54 per cent depending on the region, just for carriers to cover their costs.

De Juniac added: “Airlines are fighting for their survival. Eliminating the middle seat will raise costs. If that can be offset with higher fares, the era of affordable travel will come to an end. On the other hand, if airlines can’t recoup the costs in higher airfares, airlines will go bust. Neither is a good option when the world will need strong connectivity to help kick-start the recovery from Covid-19’s economic devastation.”

Several major US carriers, Lufthansa and Air France-KLM have all implemented requirements for passengers and crew to wear masks or face coverings of some sort throughout their journey, while others such as Easyjet have said they will leave middle seats empty when travel restrictions are lifted. Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary is also an opponent of the middle seat option, at one point calling the measure "idiotic" and threatening to ground flights if governments try to make the policy mandatory.

According to the industry body, evidence suggests that the risk of transmission of the virus that causes Covid-19 on board aircraft is low even without special measures. It points out specific case studies of contact tracing for a flight from China to Canada with a symptomatic passenger which revealed no onboard transmission, and the same results on another flight from China to the US with 12 symptomatic people on board.

IATA said it conducted a survey of 18 major airlines between January and March 2020 and found only three episodes of suspected in-flight transmission, all from passengers to crew, as well as a further four instances of transmission between pilots. Similarly, an examination of contact tracing of 1,100 passengers who were confirmed to have Covid-19 after travelling found no evidence of transmission among the more than 100,000 passengers on the same flights, with only two possible cases found among crew members.

IATA believes the low rate of onboard transmission comes down to the fact that passengers face forward and have limited face-to-face interactions, that seats act as a barrier preventing any respiratory droplets from moving forward or behind passengers, that air flow from the ceiling to the floor reduces the potential for forward or aft transmission, and that high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters used on commercial aircraft clean the air on board to hospital operating room quality.

Ultimately, IATA believes the best long-term solution for travel post-coronavirus will be a vaccine. De Juniac concluded: “We need a vaccine, an immunity passport or an effective Covid-19 test that can be administered at scale. Work on all of these is promising. But none will be realised before we will need to restart the industry. That’s why we must be ready with a series of measures, the combination of which will reduce the already low risk of in-flight transmission. And we must be careful not to hard-wire any solution so we can be quick in adopting more efficient measures as they will undoubtedly become available.”