I have highlighted this single line from your post because this sentence seems applicable in so many ongoing threads we have on Air Canada in particular. Somehow accepted practices of contractual exchange, refund of purchase - and I could go on ad infinitum - do not apply in the hallowed halls of Saint-Laurent.

I have rarely been in more complete agreement with a post here on FT.

May have something to do that "most every other business" is provincially regulated.
Airlines are federally regulated.

Has Dr. Tam made any comments about middle seats no longer being blocked?

BC officials are concerned, but obviously can't do anything about it.

From the link: "Air Canada could not be reached for comment Monday..."
How is it that a huge corporation that is geared to serve 50 million customers per year, employs 36000 people and operates 24/7 across pretty much every time zone on the planet not have communications staff available at any time? My uninformed opinion is that each time you make a policy change or any press release, you have your comms staff standing by for the follow-up questions. Or could it be that they are selectively accessible, depending upon the topic?

Answer: They don't give a rats what you/us/the public think.

Yes, she essentially echos the comments from Dr. Henry in BC:
http://globalnews.ca/news/7122339/co...irplane-seats/

My take (no evidence beyond what is in this thread) is that the Canadian government is not leading on this issue and has every appearance of being happy to let AC and WS do whatever they heck they want. By appearance they don't even seem to grasp that IATA is an industry association that is entirely biased to whatever generates profits for the airlines not whatever is in the interest of public health. If provincial and federal governments took this approach across all industries we would be in worse shape.

I am not concerned that I will get COVID-19 on an aircraft. I am concerned that packed aircraft will result in new outbreaks of COVID-19 that undermine the progress that we as a society have made over the last 5 months at tremendous human and financial cost.

Remember, AC has refused to take advantage of both wage and liquidity support from the Canadian government. So complaining that distancing on board is not financially viable rings hollow to me when they have not exhausted the financial assistance that is available to all businesses to cope with the effects of the pandemic. A restaurant doesn't get to open up dine-in at 100% capacity because of their financial situation so why should an airline? AC has consistently said "we don't need a bailout, just let us sell seats" and sorry, but that's not how it works. You don't get to chose the pandemic response that is most convenient for you - if every business did that, we'd never succeed in controlling the virus. If your continued operations pose a risk to the public and every other sector of the economy, then "just leave us alone" is not a valid argument.

Yes however restaurants aren't federally regulated so it's not a good analogy.

Ending the temporary onboard social distancing policy would've come up eventually so it was just a matter of when and not if it would happen.

(Reuters) - Air Canada (AC.TO) said on Wednesday it was working with Spartan Bioscience Inc to assess using the Ottawa-based biotechnology company�s portable COVID-19 testing technology in the aviation sector.

Spartan has been developing a proprietary swab for collecting DNA samples for its COVID-19 test, but the use of its test cartridge and the portable DNA analyzer device is subject to Canada�s healthcare regulator�s approval, Air Canada said.

The country�s largest carrier would work with Spartan �in the weeks and months ahead� before an accurate, portable molecular test for COVID-19 is made available, the company said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...KBN2492NG?il=0

Or for the full release: https://aircanada.mediaroom.com/2020...tan-Bioscience

So does this mean you might need to test negative to board? Seems way more useful than a temperature check.

It will be interesting how they plan on rolling this out either for employees and or passengers.

And will there be a surcharge if it is rolled for passengers?

Vastly so. But colour me skeptical that this will be available any time soon.

I'm no COVID-19 expert, but as the virus replicates in your body, couldn't you test negative for a while and yet be a source of transmission?

(I genuinely don't know).

You are correct, this is possible. It varies from disease to disease. However, the (bigger?) problem here would be the false negatives and the false positives. False negatives (if the test isn't very sensitive) mean infectious (and presumably asymptomatic) people are allowed to travel. False positives mean you can't travel even if you don't have the disease. That will go over well! How about a 20% chance you aren't allowed to travel because the test sucks?

On top of this, there is the issue of how sensitive this particular test is on people who are asymptomatic, as those are the ones we are theoretically most worried about. The best test right now doesn't have as good a sensitivity on asymptomatic carriers than it does on those with symptoms, and that is presumably why public health units are less inclined to test everyone because a negative test is not necessarily reassuring.

Yes, but I'm pretty sure you're also not going to have a virus-induced temperature in that case.

No one thinks this is perfect, but it seems much better than anything else in place right now.