Airlines in a Crisis

With the rule that the virus lives hours on the skin, days on cloth and a week or so on hard surfaces, I don't follow this obsession of cleaning planes, or even business premises, that no customer or staff have been in for weeks or months. It seems like cleaning have become the back to use virus mantra without rational thought for when and where it is needed. Dust yes, but just parking things for a couple of weeks is the ideal way of disinfecting it from viruses. With cleaning by hand it is more likely the cleaner bring new virus on board than that any have survived the last month. Bacteria is a different story. But then we are back to normal cleaning routines and not obsessive CoVid19 ones. And btw a simple cloth with a bit of disinfectant is not enough for a whole plane, or a store, or a hairdresser. After a certain point you are just smearing things around.

Let's take som quick math to Ryanair's O'Leary's claims that middle seat free is unsustainable. According to the Ryanair results presentation their average fare is 37 euro. Add 50% and it becomes 55.5 Still below Easyjet's current of 59 according to the same presentation. Will an extra 18 euro 50 cents really stop people from flying if it means they could be safer from viruses. It seems more of a pshycological problem for top brass rather than for any real economic reason, that airlines think they should be excempt from the physical distancing that every other business have to put up with. Some will always persist on squezing the last of capacity out of both materiel and staff, even at the cost of suffering, for others. The only thing a temporry 50% rise in ticket prices put an end to is O'Leary's plans about releasing a rush of Low Fares to get further market share from competitors, as long as they don't do just the same with borrowed money. I am su...

Problem exists because airlines in their wisdom decided that in cattle class every seat should not have its own 2 armrests. There is little help in cleaning the bathroom frequently if the person in the seat beside you leave the virus on the armrest you both share. This could have been prevented if a 3+3 aircraft was 25cm/10inches wider so one could fit 4 more independent armrests. This would give space for extra 5cm/2inch wide armrests and a small gap between the armrests of adjacent seats. A gap that these days could be used for sample a dividing curtain, or a small shield to 100% ensure you don't touch your neighbour, or anything he/she touched, with the hand that soon will inadvertently be touching your face.