Airlines have been blocking out the middle seat for the last few months on narrowbody aircraft to prevent passengers’ proximity. However, this recommendation has changed in the last few days, and some airlines have now removed the middle-seat block. Which airlines have updated their policies and which still have an empty seat in the middle?
Why airlines blocked out the middle seat?
This year, airlines took a proactive measure to ensure passenger comfort and blocked out the middle seats onboard aircraft. This generally means on a narrowbody plane with a 3-3 confirmation, two seats on each row would be blocked out and left empty.
This is very expensive for the airline (1/3 of all seats can’t be sold), and many struggled with the cost vs. benefit. Like United and American Airlines, airlines that decided not to do it were reprimanded by passengers on social media.
Not to be dramatic but American Airlines only cares about money and doesn’t care if you get sick and die. https://t.co/6q8ZfZiduB
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) July 3, 2020
Whether or not this measure is actually needed, we will leave to the experts, as it’s almost impossible to social distance onboard an aircraft anyway. With other health measures such as sanitizing after each flight and HEPA filters, planes are one of the safest places to be.
Southwest is selling the middle seats for Christmas
Many months ago, and now airlines are re-evaluating if they can have passengers back in the middle seats. Southwest was one of the first to open up the seats to be sold for the Christmas period, confident that its health measures would be enough to make social distancing attempts won’t be necessary.
“This practice of effectively keeping middle seats open bridged us from the early days of the pandemic, when we had little knowledge about the behavior of the virus, to now,” the airline said in a statement Thursday. “Today, aligned with science-based findings from trusted medical and aviation organizations, we will resume selling all available seats for travel beginning Dec. one, 2020.
They have been followed by United, American Airlines, and many others that see the revenue opportunities as too good to pass up!
Which airlines are still blocking the middle seat?
There are only a few other carriers reluctant to open up the seats as fast.
Delta believes that they will maintain their blocked seat policy well into next year. “We’re one of the few airlines in the world still that’s blocking the middle seat and capping the load factors on our plane at somewhere around two-thirds of the normal capacity,” Delta CEO told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria.”
Alaska Airlines also intends to extend the seat block policy until after the Christmas period. “Extending blocking of middle seats on mainline aircraft through Jan. 6th, 2021,” the carrier said in a statement on their website. Even though the airline is burning through four million a day – it could really use the revenue a middle seat would provide.
JetBlue is the last airline that still has blocked middle seats. In a statement to Washington Post, the airline said that “middle seats are blocked for purchase on our larger aircraft, and most aisle seats are blocked for purchase on our smaller aircraft.” However, notice that it said ‘most’ of the seats are blocked. Not all. The airline capped its small plane capacity at 70%, which means you may sit next to someone. Passengers will need to roll the dice.
What do you think of this news? Let us know in the comments.