Just to clarify
1. I only mentioned US airlines because that's the context that I'm familiar with, I don't want to presume about areas of the world I'm less familiar with (shocker for FT, I know).
2. I agree, no airlines will remove seats. (I was saying that in the short term, the digital seating chart/seat assignments might be changed to spread out people, without making any physical changes).
3. Eventually, yes the world will go back to normal. But again, coming from the US, where we were not as aggressive as China in monitoring and containing the virus, I expect the situation to last longer here than it has in China. (And when there are some parts of the world shut down, and some open, to me that likely means there will still be a patchwork of international travel restrictions, at least until there's a feasible cure/vaccine).
Ok we agree no airlines anywhere will remove seats ( the title of this thread ) and the world will get back to normal, its just a question of how long that will take and how.