Originally Posted by Dyce

2 things here... United have drastically cut future capacity (May-June) based on current demand. This has resulted in:

1) prices going up - cash or miles
2) loads going up

for example, I’ve continued flying IAH-CMH-IAH during the past few weeks. This route is/was a direct flight 3+ times a day

initially flights were cancelling left, right and center and the flights that did operate had ~10-pax (normally served by a 175)

Eventually we were down to 1 flight most days with 17 passengers on my flight IAH-CMH on Monday.

For my next flight in May there are no direct flights and I’ve been routed through ORD with much higher load on the ORD-IAH flight

this is resulting / will result in less social distancing on planes where several ppl (of the 17 passengers on Monday I counted 5 without masks including a non rev pilot in FC) will have zero common courtesy & respect for others and not wear a face mask...

So, I’m going to start driving it... 17 hours in the car isn’t fun, but at less than $100 each way for gas, and no risk from being in a Petri dish plane of ~75% capacity, to me it’s a better choice.

i think ppl will start freaking out when the flights are over 50% full again (how comfortable would you be sitting next to someone without a mask occasionally coughing for 2 hours?).

i don’t blame the airlines for matching supply to demand, but I think the net result is eventually going to be detrimental to getting ppl flying again this summer.

i predict a LOT of ppl will resort to traditional family road trip vacations to visit relatives in other parts of the country this summer...