According to the CEO of the world’s second largest airline, Delta, some sort of vaccine passport is required for overseas flights, but not domestic flights in the US.
Ed Bastian says in an interview on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, “I don’t see that happening in the US, but internationally I think that will probably become a requirement.”
Bastian also tells Holt that Delta will block the middle seats until the end of April and that the company is “not ready to make a decision” to resell them. But he explained, “We’re going to sell it as soon as people continue to feel confident about travel, we have no choice but to sell and give them the chance to take the middle seat.”
Some sort of vaccine passport is required for overseas flights, but not for US domestic flights, Ed Bastian tells NBC Nightly News
Bastian tells NBC’s Lester Holt that Delta will block the middle seats until the end of April and that the company is “ not ready to make a decision ” to resell them.
On the future of mask mandates, Bastian says: “Once the virus is in a contained form, you will probably still see some customers wearing masks.
But I hope that once we, as a society, have confidence that we have overcome this virus, that we can return to life as we knew it and that we can also fly safely on airplanes without having to wear masks. . ‘
About customers who are nervous about flying again, Bastian tells Holt that airlines offer the safest mode of transport.
He says, “There is no safer form of transportation than on our planes with ours [hospital-grade] Hepa filtration systems, mask enforcement, center seats blocked, space on board.
I hope that if we as a society are sure that we have overcome this virus, that we can return to life as we knew it and that we can also fly safely on airplanes without wearing masks.
‘Our team is doing great. We are proud of the work they have done and the confidence is being restored, but I appreciate the concern, and you can see it even in road warriors when they get back to the airports and in the air for the first time. ‘
On the future of business travel, he says it will come back, but the recovery will be a year or two behind that of leisure travel.
He continues: ‘As we move forward, we don’t see much business travel at the moment. We’re down … probably still about 80 percent, but as we reach late summer in fall, and again as vaccinations increase as our country begins to achieve immunity to herds, hopefully by the start of this summer, companies will come back.
Ed Bastian tells NBC Nightly News: ‘As we move forward, we don’t see much business travel at the moment. We’re down … probably still about 80 percent ‘
“I hear from all of our businesses – big companies – that they are ready to visit their customers and meet and see their teams. So it comes back. It may take maybe another year or two before vacation travel is over. ‘
In the United States, air travel is recovering faster from the depths of the pandemic, with longer security lines at airports and more traffic on airline websites, both signs of this.
The Transportation Security Administration screened more than 1.3 million people both Friday and Sunday, a new high since the coronavirus outbreak devastated the trip a year ago.
Airlines say they think the numbers are on the rise, with more people booking flights for the spring and summer.
“Our last three weeks were the best three weeks since the pandemic, and each week was better than the last,” said Doug Parker, American Airlines CEO Monday.
Shares of airlines rallied across the board, and shares of the four largest US airlines hit their highest prices in more than a year.
Although the number of people passing through airport checkpoints has reached more than one million for four consecutive days and the seven-day moving average is the highest in the pandemic era, passenger traffic in March still fell by more than 50 percent compared to the same period in 2019.
The Ed Bastian interview airs tonight on NBC Nightly News at 6:30 pm ET / 5:30 pm CT.