- American Airlines and Delta Air Lines have taken two very different approaches to the pandemic.
- Delta has been blocking the middle seats since April 2020, while American has never embraced the policy.
- I took three flights with both airlines in 2021 to see how the two handle social distances in the air.
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American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were the two largest airlines in the US before the pandemic, each with billions of annual revenues and the largest fleets of any global airline. Both offered similar products, where the choice between the two came down to factors such as customer preference, price and loyalty.
However, the gap between them widened during the pandemic, thanks to one important factor: safety. While Delta blocked the center seats for most of 2020, American was already putting its planes up to capacity in the summer.
I flew with both carriers on my first trip back to the skies since the pandemic started in June 2020 and found Delta to be a much better sight than the US, largely because of the former’s supernatural approach to safety. But as we enter a new year in the aviation recovery, I wanted to see how the two fared, almost a year since COVID-19 turned aviation on its head.
I took three flights on a recent trip with both airlines, from New York to Miami on American and then from Houston, Texas to Los Angeles via Salt Lake City on Delta. The result was surprising, especially as the US continues to see record deaths from COVID-19 and a slow launch of vaccines.
Here’s which pandemic was best treated in 2021.