Seat blocking for Covid / Coronavirus (consolidated thread)
 

Relaxed seating policies — link

In response to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) social distancing guidelines, American will temporarily relax seating policies for customers on most flights and reduce onboard food and beverage service levels.

To encourage social distancing, gate agents and flight attendants will be able to proactively reassign seats to create more space between customers beginning March 24. Once on board — provided there aren’t any aircraft weight or balance restrictions — customers can move to another seat within their ticketed cabin subject to availability. American will also block 50% of all middle seats and all seats adjacent to Flight Attendant jump seats on every flight.

wish AA would block the middle seats all the time

Way back in the day (like the days of the Bistro Bags, which is an unfathomable amenity in Y now), AA used to block the seats next to EXPs. They could still be sold, but they were the last seats to be assigned.

I would think that if the airlines want to continue to fly during this they should be required to block off all middle seats. On RJ flights block off aisle seats.

I do remember the good old days.. and I remember this when PLT was the old EXP
BA still tries to block the seat next to you if flying coach (as a OWE)..

With load factors these days every passenger will have an entire seat section to themselves.

Yes, I believe they referred to it as a 'courtesy block.' Back when I was a CK, I used to request this all the time. Naturally, loads 10 years ago are not what they were in 2019, where nearly every seat was taken. I've had luck, very occasionally, in asking the gate agent to keep a seat open, if possible, with mixed results.

Shortly after the merger, I remember flying on a few AA flights that had the middle seats blocked for elites. There was a tray covering the seat, so it would have been very difficult to seat a passenger there (you would have needed tools to take the tray out). This was in Oct 2014.

While the aisle/middles were “premium” (non MCE) seats this was to keep the 737s at 150 seats for crew staffing. Perhaps AA is thinking about “blocked seats” in this way again for staffing. I think it was adding MCE that created the strange arrangement.

heck you didn't even need to be Exec Plat. Before that tier was even created, you could get a middle seat blocked next to you even as a lowly gold

Please be patient during this difficult time
 

Agents will try to re-seat customers further apart, upon request, BEFORE boarding begins. Please don't try to do this once on the aircraft as 1) the cabin crew don't have the full system loaded on their tablets yet, so they can't tell you what seat may still be open, and 2) you the passenger, don't know where cargo is loaded on the aircraft (fwd and or aft cargo hold).

If you do want to change a seat, please ask the agent BEFORE boarding (should always be an option even before these times) if there is someone seated next/near you. With the much lower load factors on many flights, social distancing can affect weight and balance calculations for some aircraft.

Asking the Gate agent to change your seat before boarding, allows the computer system to ensure the aircraft maintains proper weight and balance during taxi, takeoff, and landing.

We can't sell the seats, so lets do some PR. It's all BS.

Caveat - I don't think anyways save for critical employees (healthcare, etc.) and funerals should be flying. Also caveat that I'm glad I'm not running an airline right now.

WIth that said, AA has eliminated any food or beverage service on flights under 2200 miles as part of this. Delta has adjusted their food service to be pre-packaged snacks and meals, and bottled water. Two different ways to adapt to the changes and the CDC guidelines with two very different customer experiences.

Kind of what I didn't understand. Why didn't AA go with the old school lunchboxes (used to be part of the second Y service on transcons) that could be wrapped in plastic and disposed of afterwards?

I heard last night that domestic air travel was down 89% last week over the same week last year. I’m surprised it isn’t worse. In any event, if you’re still traveling, social distancing onboard is probably easy to carry off.