Assuming you can find a flight, one of the few upsides of flying in recent months has been the empty middle seat. It is something people have got used to very quickly. But for airlines, it isn’t a sustainable option. Always on the front foot, Qantas is tilling the soil, wanting to dampen expectations that the middle seat will be staying empty when flying resumes.
Qantas looking at alternatives to the empty middle seat
Social distancing is one of the mantras of managing this health crisis. Tackling the middle seat issue and arguing there are alternative ways to ensure passenger health, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday;
“Even if you takethemiddle seat as being empty, that’s 60 centimeters. The social distancing rules are supposed to be 1.5 meters. If you did that, you’d have very few people on an aircraft, and the airfares would have to be very high.”
