etiene

Yet again people conflating the number of seats associated with a given row and the cabin density. Sigh.

TheJayHatch

A colleague’s other half flew back from Washington 10 days ago. Plane was almost completely empty, save for CW which was effectively full. They were all BA FC and/or CC.

lhrsfo

I do know that too many people don't bother with rules, but as business travel is one of the few things which lets you board a plane, it would make sense that a higher proportion of the bookings will be for business travellers who are more inclined to book a business seat.

1Aturnleft

With the latest UK updates today coming into effect from Monday next week I think we're approaching what most with deep pockets for a destination like MLE would describe as a significant deterrent against all but non essential travel and that in the great scheme of things it's probably not worth risking.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55992464

sammyg901

The (potential) problem with this is the last minute nature of travel at the moment - Air France & KLM did this on flights I took in December but then sold a lot of seats last minute after couples and groups had been allocated windows/aisles with blocked middles. This caused very slow boarding whilst people messed around trying to sit between seated/surprised couples, deciding if they'd move over or give the newcomer the window etc etc

Perhaps BA could tweak its more intelligent seat blocking module to keep windows/aisles blocked if a couple sits together as it'll be less disruptive if the flight does suddenly fill up and they need to release the seat

babyg_wc

The government waved the £10,000 stick last year, but never used it.... - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54320482
Perhaps this time they will start making examples of people.

babyg_wc

Not conflating per se, but the economy cabin has approx. 40 PAX, whilst the club cabin has 60 PAX. The floor space for both cabins is similar or almost identical if you remove the last club row in club. Therefore you are more Covid safe in economy (assuming you can spreadout).

HIDDY

I one feels that strongly about it I suspect the last thing they'd want to do is get on a long haul aircraft in the first place.

PGberkshire

But you still have to sit in economy seats (and eat economy food), not much of a win on route to a luxury holiday.

ginger50

Back in October Ms G50 and I had a job in Zurich and at the time both BA and Swiss were scheduling wide bodied aircraft on the LHR - ZRH route. J class was almost empty on a Swiss 777.. only 5 people (including us) in the cabin, now THAT is what I call social distancing.

LHR was comfortable with good COVID procedures but ZRH!... utterly appalling and a complete surprise to us, hoards of unmasked people milling about. I thought the Swiss were smarter than that.

gms

Firstly, drawing any conclusions from the seat maps shown in your original post is risky. The number of allocated seats in seat maps for future flights is a poor indicator of likely actual loads, especially in Y cabins. Many people are simply not willing to pay for seat selection.

Secondly, benchmarking how covid safe different cabins are based only on the area they cover is simply flawed. All Club cabins have dividers between seats. Newer cabins also have doors. There are no similar partitions between seats in Economy.

Anyone prepared to travel right now is accepting some increased risk. My last flights were in March 2020. I don't plan to resume travel until I have had the benefit of at least my first vaccination. An airline promising to only sell 50% of its seats wouldn't make any difference to my risk assessment in premium cabins. Of course, with every day that goes by at the moment, it seems that at least short-term, many more flights will be cancelled or operate near empty and/or rely on cargo.

Giblets

I would not be surprised if there was an element of risk adjustment in this in addition to the points above. Firstly CW fares are pretty low at the moment, air travel is seen as higher risk, so suspect many HR departments are also allowing staff members to travel CW in order to increase safety by providing them with 'more space' for the flight where normal policy may not allow this.

destone

For what it’s worth, the seat maps could have been screenshot-ed at the point of departure. I did the same two weeks ago, and ExpertFlyer showed seats real-time right at the point of departure. (I appreciate that sometimes it’s under airport control, but I believe this is rare during the pandemic given the low passenger load.)

As for CW, I would not want to sit in 6B with a stranger next to me in 6D (787-9) as it’s uncomfortably close with no dividers in-between. When both passengers eat and drink at the same time, that’s a risk.

gms

They weren't. Look at the date shown in the original post.

PGberkshire

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