Some form of vaccine passport will be required for international flights, but not for domestic flights in the United States, according to the CEO of the world’s second largest airline, Delta.
Ed Bastian said in an interview with NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt: ‘I don’t see this happening in the United States, but I think that internationally this will probably be a requirement.’
Bastian also told Holt that Delta will block the middle seats by the end of April and that the company “is not ready to make” the decision to sell them again. But he explained: ‘We will sell it as soon as people continue to gain confidence in travel, we will have no choice but to sell and give them the opportunity to sit in the middle seat.’
Some kind of vaccine passport will be needed for international flights, but not for domestic flights in the United States, Ed Bastian told NBC Nightly News
Bastian told Lester Holt of NBC that Delta will block intermediate seats by the end of April and that the company “is not ready to make” the decision to sell them again
Regarding the future of mask mandates, Bastian says: ‘Once the virus is in a contained form, you will probably still see some customers wearing masks.
‘But I hope that when we are confident as a society that we have beaten this virus, we will be able to return to life as we knew it and that will include being able to fly safely on airplanes without having to wear masks. ‘
For customers who are nervous about flying again, Bastian tells Holt that airlines offer the safest form of transportation.
He says: ‘There is no safer form of transport that you will find than on our planes with our [hospital-grade] Hepa filtration systems, masking, blocked intermediate seats, space on board.
I hope that when we are confident as a society that we have beaten this virus, we will be able to come back to life as we knew it and that will include being able to fly safely on airplanes without having to wear masks
‘Our team is doing a great job. We are proud of the work they have done and trust is being restored, but I appreciate the anxiety, and you see it even with the road warriors, when they first return to the airports and in the skies. ‘
Regarding the future of business travel, he says he will return, but the recovery will be a year or two behind leisure travel.
He continues: ‘As we move forward, we are not seeing many business trips. We are down … probably still around 80 percent, but when we reach the end of the summer in the fall, and again as vaccinations increase and our country begins to achieve collective immunity, hopefully early this summer, companies are coming back.
Ed Bastian told NBC Nightly News: ‘As we move forward, we are not seeing a lot of business travel at the moment. We are down … probably still around 80 percent ‘
‘I have heard from all of our businesses – large corporate companies that they are ready to go and see their customers and go and meet each other and see their teams. Then, it will come back. It may be another year or two behind leisure travel.
In the United States, air travel is recovering more quickly from the depths of the pandemic, with longer security lines at airports and heavy traffic on airline websites, both signs of this.
The Transportation Security Administration examined more than 1.3 million people on Friday and Sunday, setting a new record since the coronavirus outbreak devastated travel a year ago.
Airlines say they believe the numbers are rising, with more people booking flights for spring and summer.
“Our last three weeks have been the best since the pandemic hit, and each week has been better than the last,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said on Monday.
Airline shares have risen at all levels and the shares of the four largest operators in the United States have reached their highest prices in more than a year.
However, while the number of people passing through airport checkpoints has reached one million for four consecutive days and the seven-day continuous average is the highest of the pandemic era, passenger traffic has still dropped by more than 50 percent in March compared to the same period in 2019.
The interview with Ed Bastian will air on NBC Nightly News tonight at 6:30 pm ET / 5:30 pm CT.