HeyItsMK

IME it's definitely everyone is definitely starting to loosen up on these rules. In the lounges, I've recently been to the Sky Clubs in DEN, SLC, LAX, ATL, MSP, and SEA, and the only people walking around were there to clean up after guests who were often unmasked, and only the announcements over the loudspeaker for mask wearing were made. Aside from SEA, all the clubs were pretty crowded. Less people overall at Alaska Lounges, but I've experienced more staff walking around to enforce mask usage.

At the gate, I've had five flights on AS in the past 20 where the GA has made the announcement that they may not be able to space everyone out, but in all of these cases, they have asked passengers to check in to ask them to move their originally assigned or selected seats and have only ended up needing to seat people next to each other on 1 flight. This was after they have asked for consent from everyone involved to do so. My DL experience has overall been 100% in around 12 flights, but there are reports on the DL Forum where changes to capacity caps are causing other posters to report instances of sitting next to strangers.

Inflight, my experience has generally been good with mask enforcement from FAs on both airlines, although my experience has been that AS flight attendants pass through the cabin more often than DL, likely due to the higher service levels currently offered by the airlines, so that gives them more opportunities to enforce mask wearing.

So overall, I would disagree that the two airline's enforcement of safety protocols are "night and day", but again that's just one person's experience against another. I still value flying on both airlines and would select either airline over others based on what schedule and cost were better for me.

chrisl137

I've also flown a bunch of times since March, but on limited routes (various Los Angeles airports to PDX and back) where mask compliance is generally pretty good anyway. I've seen at least one pax get offloaded for refusing to keep his mask on.

PDXPremier

With yet another airline removing seat blocking (JetBlue), I think the writing is on the wall and AS will stop seat blocking after 1/6/21.....I've enjoyed the extra space in Y, but as I've probably said before, that is not a sustainable model. Hopefully we'll see the return of advance U space when seat blocking in F goes away (fingers crossed).

https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/j...ec-1-2020.html

RAD_PDX

Yep, I imagine Delta and AS will both pull the plug then. I’ll gladly accept them booking Y full if they’re willing to fill F as well.

Xrayman

+1. Over 50 segs this year, the vast majority after March 1. Routinely hear the GA and FA announce “ requirements”. Have observed some wearing vented masks being informed they “ must” cover over with a non vented mask or wear a different mask.

NoLaGent

As an interesting data point, with the December/January schedule changes, all of my QX and OO E175 flights have removed the block of 1C for the FA. I thought it might be a glitch, but they've stayed that way for 6 days now.

Also of note, the left aisles were blocked on these aircraft in Y previously, but that's also been eliminated. (I'm specifically looking at LAX-MSO, but it's consistent throughout all the E175 and Q400 flights.). As noted now on the website, only mainline has blocking in Y through 1/6/2021. They're still capping sales of F fleet wide though thru 1/6, I also verified that.

olouie

Is AS blocking F seats for upgrades as well? Noticed that on my recent flights there were open seats but they didn’t upgrade people on the upgrade list. And now on my flight today it shows F zeroed out but half the seats are open on the seat map (yeah I know it’s not perfect indicator but is exactly half open).

Kind of interesting that whole rows went unused as people travelling together sat together in same rows.

anteater

AFAIK - No. Once at gate control, the GA should process the upgrade list, according to social distancing policy (eg strangers don’t sit next to each other).

It is possible they didn’t fill those seats due to load and balancing concerns, or the GA just didn’t do that task.

olouie

Thanks! No a huge deal as Y with blocked middle is really nice for short and medium flights. My flight is only 3.5 hours so not a big deal if upgrades don’t clear.

RAD_PDX

As stated, they stop selling F at 50% capacity, however; upgrades should be processed so that F can be filled as much as possible without having any strangers sitting next to each other

NoLaGent

Although this too seems to have changed, at least for the cap in F on E175s. As I noted a few posts above, non-mainline has changed with FA seat blocking, and it seems the cap as well.

For my flights in Dec/Jan, they're selling 8 of 12, with no FA seat blocked, so technically it seems to have increased to 66.6%

RAD_PDX

Yes, it does appear to be mainline only following this particular model.

fly747first

That leaves a lot of room for interpretation of gate agents... not sure how that will work out

anteater

Can you elaborate? AS has a policy for how to upgrade elites in the current climate.

ctporter

Just flew SMF to SEA last week. GAs upgraded people to fill all seats leaving only 1C unoccupied. Was extremely surprised to find someone next to me in 2D. First time since before March that has happened. It was a Horizon E175. Flying in and out of SEA SFO or SJC has not been that way.