Tag Archives for middle seat.
You can generally buy yourself an extra seat on U.S. airlines. With airfares low, this can be a great deal.
American Airlines doesn’t promote the option, but they even have a no procedure to allow you to use credits from previous trips to pay for your extra seat.
Delta, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue all limit the number of seats they’ll sell on a flight to varying degrees, promoting some on board social distancing. United, American, Spirit, and Allegiant do not.
Contra journalist Seth Kaplan, there’s no clear connection between blocking middle seats and a need to furlough airline employees. If anything there’s an effect in the opposite direction.
To avoid assigning any middle seats on a narrowbody aircraft with six seats across, that means blocking one-third of the seats in coach (67% load factor). Delta has been capping sales at 60% of the seats in coach. Starting October 1 they are going to be selling more seats, up to 75% of the seats in coach on each plane. That means filling each cabin 25% more than before.
Over the next month 7 airlines are launching the ability to buy multiple seats for yourself online as part of buying a ticket, and pick those seats off the seat map to guarantee you as much space as you wish.
Delta has pledged to continue to block middle seats past September 30. This goes farther than what other airlines will do. They’re also doing more cleaning between flights, too. But how can that make sense?
Your risk really comes down to likelihood of being right near someone else who has the virus – much like anywhere else you go except that in most indoor places there isn’t HEPA air filtration. Planes are probably safer, then, than bars, indoor restaurant dining, gyms, and open plan offices.
But it’s confusing to look at planes, where social distancing isn’t mandated, and hear airlines say it “isn’t possible” while restaurants are being required to do it to their own financial detriment all over the country and to wonder what’s different?
It makes sense why American and United would sell every last seat on a plane customers are willing to buy, why Southwest doesn’t lose as much capping load factors and why doing so – they believe – will help them capture market share, and why Delta would take a more ‘premium’ approach that includes blocked middle seats.
Either blocking seats on planes for social distancing is important, or it isn’t. American Airlines will no longer block seats for passengers (claiming it isn’t necessary) but will continue to block seats for flight attendants (for their protection).
Southwest, Delta, and JetBlue are limiting the number of seats they sell on each flight so there’s no need for passengers to occupy middle seats. Sometimes middle seats will be taken, but that usually means families traveling together. American Airlines has been limiting loads about half as much as others – but that ends July 1.
United Airlines, in contrast, has been happy to sell a ticket for any seat on any flight and fill all the middles throughout the COVID crisis. Starting July 1 even more of those middle seats will be filled.
Southwest, Delta, and JetBlue are limiting the number of seats they sell on each flight so there’s no need for passengers to occupy middle seats.
American Airlines does not. They cap capacity, but still sell enough seats so about half of middles might be occupied. American’s much lesser restriction will end July 1.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
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. More About Gary »
