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What’s more important: being safe or feeling safe? If you think the answer is obvious, think again.
Consider air travel, for example. Although flying is, statistically, one of the least deadly modes of transport—safer than cars, trains and boats—the mere thought of getting on a plane makes many people feel unsafe.
The percentage of Americans who report being afraid to fly has, for years, hovered above 50%. In surveys, people point to any number of fear-inducing events that could play out in the sky, from turbulence to hijackings to mid-air collisions. And yet, the risk of dying in a plane crash is less than 1 in 11,000,000 (compare that to the 1 in 107 odds of dying in a motor-vehicle accident).
When it comes to flying, fear proves to be a more powerful motivator than facts. For many, feeling safe is more important than being safe.
And along came Covid
Once the coronavirus hit U.S. shores, the reputation of air travel took another nosedive. Throughout 2020, opinion polls showed that Americans who weren’t previously afraid to fly were avoiding air travel over concerns of contracting the deadly virus on board a plane.
These fears devastated major airliners. Flight occupancy declined by 60% last year, causing an estimated $35 billion in net losses industrywide.
To combat the public’s growing paranoia over catching Covid-19 on an airplane, the largest carriers rallied together to give passengers a renewed sense of safety.
Starting in the spring of 2020, each member of the “Big Four” aligned with the most recognizable names in medicine and household cleaning products:
- America Airlines launched its CleanCommiment with the help of Purell and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- United’s CleanPlus program is backed by Clorox and the Cleveland Clinic
- Delta launched its CareStandard initiative in concert with the Mayo Clinic and the makers of Lysol
- The Southwest Promise involves a partnership with the Stanford University School of Medicine and the use of HEPA filters on board
The industry’s trade group, Airlines for America (A4A), even sponsored a study conducted by Harvard’s School of Public Health. The research collaboration confirmed that “flying poses less risk of viral spread than shopping or eating out” and that “there has been little evidence to date of onboard disease transmission.”
The air-travel industry’s potent combination of clean-freakiness and third-party scientific validation seems to be paying off. Since April 2020, the number of Americans passing through TSA checkpoints has steadily increased. And according to TSA data, 1.357 million people passed through U.S. airports last Friday, more than on any day since March of last year.
But even as planes remain a relatively safe (and increasingly relied upon) means of travel, a recent flight from San Diego to New York taught me an important lesson: When it comes to Covid-19, the goal of the airline industry isn’t to maximize passenger safety. It’s to maximize the feeling of safety.
The flight from hell
As we boarded the plane, a flight attendant handed us all sealed alcohol wipes to disinfect our seats and tray tables. An overhead announcement rang throughout the cabin, instructing passengers to wear a mask at all times, except when eating or drinking.
I took my seat and opened my computer. That’s when it started. The woman sitting directly behind me began coughing, loudly. In the rows nearby were a few elderly passengers, a pregnant mother with a young child, and five or six people likely traveling for business. They all looked nervous.
After about 10 minutes of uninterrupted coughing, the woman paged the flight attendant. She requested a Kleenex and blew her nose. Minutes later, with the mask still draped around her neck, I turned and asked her to please cover her nose and mouth. She lifted her mask but continued to cough, sneeze and wheeze for the next five hours. With her face flushed (the likely result of fever), the woman complained to her travel companion about how bad she felt.
I had already received my second coronavirus vaccination two weeks earlier, but I was concerned for my fellow passengers. Not long into the flight, I made my way to the galley area and told the flight attendant that the passenger posed a major health risk.
“Sir, I’m not a physician and I can’t make that determination,” she said.
“I am a physician,” I replied, “and it’s extremely likely that woman has Covid-19.”
With another apology, the crew member told me there was nothing she could do. I protested, insisting there was much more she could do to protect the people aboard.
She could move the sick passenger to one of the three empty rows at the back of the aircraft. She could make sure the woman was tested as soon as she left the plane so that all the exposed passengers could be notified of the results and begin to quarantine. And she could report the woman to health officials who could prevent her from getting into an Uber or taking a train to Grand Central Station.
“I’ll notify the captain,” she replied, still rearranging soda cans.
The illusion of safety
If the goal of the airline industry were to maximize passenger safety, the flight crew would have asked the woman to sit in the back of the plane, cordoned off from others. Staff would have asked her to remain in her seat until all passengers had deplaned. There would have been a line of health officials waiting at the end of the ramp in New York, ready to perform a nasal swab on the sick woman. And when her Covid-19 test came back positive, the airline would have notified everyone sitting near her to quarantine for 10 to 14 days.
But there were no health officials, no testing kits and no contact tracing efforts. Instead, I watched the woman hop on the AirTrain, likely headed for New York City.
On my drive home, I called the airline to report the incident. The agent told me nothing more could be done at this time, adding that if the sick passenger did test positive, the laboratory would notify the people she exposed.
I doubt the woman got tested. And even if she ultimately required hospital treatment, by that point it’d be too late to warn her fellow passengers.
My travel experience was horrible but hardly unique. From January to August 2020, the CDC logged 1,600 COVID-19 investigations on commercial aircraft. In December, a couple boarded a flight from San Francisco after they knowingly tested positive for Covid-19. And earlier this year, infected passengers boarded 14 different flights from the U.S. to Canada—all in just one week.
A sense of control
When it comes to preventing coronavirus transmission, airlines talk a good game.
Visit their websites and you’ll find videos touting electrostatic sprayers, used to sanitize and disinfect “all surfaces of the airplane,” including seats and tray tables. The sprayer is highly effective at killing the coronavirus on surfaces, so why bother handing you a packet of sealed alcohol wipes as you board the plane? Besides, scientists long-ago concluded that surfaces present an extremely low risk of transmitting the virus.
The wipes aren’t meant to help you eradicate Covid-19. They’re intended to give you a false sense of control over your immediate surroundings—like those crosswalk buttons that don’t really speed up traffic signals.
The illusion of safety is all around us. For example, we all know that wearing a mask is scientifically proven to diminish viral transmission. That’s why passengers are reminded frequently to wear them at the airport and on board the aircraft. But masks prove ineffective when removed for 15 minutes while eating, drinking and chatting up the person seated next to you on the plane.
And what about that personal health assessment all travelers must complete—the one that requires passengers to confirm they have not experienced COVID-19 symptoms for 14 days prior to the flight? Do the airlines really believe that clickable boxes will keep sick people from flying? Try to imagine TSA agents taking the same approach to screening for weapons: Rather than X-raying your bags or sending you through a metal detector, they simply ask you to check a box, agreeing not to board the flight with a semi-automatic pistol.
Getting serious about safety
U.S. carriers face a difficult dilemma. They could maximize safety by screening people for Covid-19 before boarding, keeping passengers six feet apart at all times and implementing aggressive contact-tracing efforts. But each measure comes with a high risk of losing customers and revenue.
Given how taxing and onerous it would be for U.S. carriers to maximize airplane safety—and prevent a potential super-spreader event like the one on my flight to New York—it’s no wonder our nation’s airline CEOs are pushing back.
“We don’t have the facility or the technology or capabilities to be administering or monitoring domestic testing,” said the CEO of Delta, who echoed the stance taken by the CEO of Southwest, who said, “I just think it’s wholly impractical.”
Such measures aren't impossible or impractical. In Canada, for example, travelers arriving on international flights must take a mandatory Covid-19 test at the airport and are required to quarantine in a hotel. Those who violate quarantine face “serious penalties, including six months in prison and/or $750,000 in fines.” To enforce these protocols, Canadian health officials monitor 6,500 international travelers each day to verify compliance.
It's not impossible to test passengers before flying or to keep them six feet apart or to enforce quarantine measures. But doing so would be costly, difficult and, for major airliners, financially impractical.
Our nation’s desire to feel safe (which exceeds our desire to be safe) reaches far beyond the airport. Elected officials have also talked a good game about Covid-19 safety. Some have consistently called for aggressive coronavirus testing, but not one powerful politician has called for the mandatory isolation of those who test positive—the kind of measure you find in countries with much lower Covid-19 death rates.
Doing so could have saved tens of thousands of lives, but our nation’s leaders were content to post signs outside of airports and push text notifications with toothless reminders to quarantine upon arrival.
There’s no way to know whether the woman sitting behind me on the flight to New York infected two, 10 or 20 passengers. There’s no way to know how many people those passengers will go on to infect. What we do know is that airlines, and Americans in general, prefer the feeling of safety over doing the arduous work necessary to ensure people’s safety. The result has been an excessive loss of life.
