A certain type of vaccine passport for overseas flights will be required, but not for domestic flights in the US, according to the CEO of the world’s second largest airline, Delta.
Ed Bastian says in an interview with NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt: “I don’t see it happening in the US, but I think it will probably be a requirement internationally.”
Bastian also tells Holt that Delta will block the middle seats by the end of April and that the company is “not ready to make” a decision on selling them again. He explained: “We will sell it once 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.”
A certain type of vaccine passport will be required for overseas flights, but not for domestic flights in the US, Ed Bastian told NBC Nightly News
Bastian tells NBC’s Lester Holt that Delta will block the middle seats by the end of April and that the company is “not ready to make” a decision to sell them again.
Regarding the future of mask mandates, Bastian says: “Once the virus is in a limited form, you will probably still see some customers wearing masks.
“But I hope, once we are confident as a society, that we have conquered this virus, that we will be able to come back to life as we knew it and that it will include the possibility to fly safely on airplanes without the need to wear masks. ‘
As for customers who feel nervous when they fly again, Bastian tells Holt that airlines offer the safest mode of transportation.
He says: “You will not find a safer form of transport than in our planes [hospital-grade] Hepa filtration systems, application of masks, locking of the middle seats, space on board.
I hope that once we are confident as a society that we have conquered this virus, that we will be able to come back to life as we knew it and that it will also include the ability to fly safely on airplanes without the need to wear masks.
“Our team is doing a great job. We are proud of the work they have done and confidence is restored, but I appreciate the anxiety and you see it even with the road warriors, because they are returning to the airports and in the sky for the first time. ‘
As for the future of business travel, he says it will return, but the recovery will lag behind that of leisure travel by a year or two.
He continues: “As we move forward, we don’t see much business travel right now. We are down … probably still about 80 percent, but as we reach the end of summer in the fall and again, as vaccinations increase as our country begins to reach herd immunity, we hope that by the beginning of this cousins, business will return.
Ed Bastian told NBC Nightly News: “As we move forward, we don’t see much business travel right now. We’re down … probably about 80 percent ‘
“We learned from all our businesses – big business corporations that they are ready to go and see their customers and meet and see their teams. So he’ll be back. He may be a year or two behind leisure trips.
In the United States, air travel is recovering faster from the depths of the pandemic, with longer airport security lines and more heavy traffic on airline websites, both signs of this.
The Transportation Security Administration examined more than 1.3 million people on both Friday and Sunday, setting a new high as the coronavirus outbreak devastated travel a year ago.
Airlines say they think numbers are rising, with more people booking flights for spring and summer.
“Our last three weeks have been the best three weeks since the pandemic, and each week has been better than the last,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said Monday.
Shares of airlines have risen everywhere, and the shares of the four largest US carriers have reached their highest prices in more than a year.
However, while the number of people passing through airport checkpoints has exceeded one million for four consecutive days and the seven-day rolling average is the highest since the pandemic, passenger traffic is still declining by more than 50 % in March, compared to the period in 2019.
Ed Bastian’s interview airs tonight on NBC Nightly News at 18:30 ET / 17:30 CT.