Read the tweet of Ethan Weiss, it can't be plainer than that. The bit that says "We're automatically blocking middle seats to give you enough space on board", then look again at the picture. That's it. You can be annoyed as a taxpayer that they are not filling the plane but that is moot given the UA statement.

To practice the recommended social distancing of 6' apart, that means one person about every 113 sq. ft. That means only about 11 people could board an A320 and meet the guidelines. If people choose (or need) to fly, they have to understand that by doing so, they are not able to follow the distancing guidelines.

It's not as if physical distancing means that if you're closer than 6ft to another person you're guaranteed to get COVID-19 and get terribly sick (or worse),
and if you're further than 6ft from another person you will be 100% safe.
Since we're all wearing masks nowadays, the idea is to keep as far away as possible, under the circumstance.

Having the middle seat unoccupied seems like a good solution for a few reasons:
- less crowding in gate area
- less crowding while boarding
- less close proximity while placing bags in overhead
- spread of viral load from an infected person is likely going to be considerably less if the other persons are one to two feet further away

Having the middle seat unoccupied seems like a good solution and United promoted that idea.
I'd rather UA flew at ~70% occupancy, and keep the middle seat open. This seems like a good compromise.

It can't be as financially devastating as not flying at all, or only flying with cargo, surely?

Not the cliche re: "annoyed as a taxpayer" again.

UA did say middle seats would be blocked, you probably missed that mail.

I flew United yesterday from IAH-DEN and every seat on the plane was occupied. Part of it seemed to be that about 20-30 standbys were cleared at the gate.

The flight mostly went well although upon landing I saw at least five people just in my immediate area pull their masks down, exposing their noses and mouths. It might be good for United to remind everyone to keep masks on through the deplaning process.

The DEN airport seemed fairly busy and I was surprised by how many people there were not wearing masks, including airport workers.

The reality - with hundreds of billions having been lost already due to it - is that the public justifiably fears to fly. Getting a deadly disease by being jammed with your mouth 8" from the person next to you is just not worth flying. I have zero interest in doing it, nor evidently do about 95% of travelers (given travel numbers are down by 97% in the US). OTOH, air travel is a necessary and required service. We can't run an economy or a government if we don't have a network of airplanes.

The airlines promised to keep middle seats open - starting with Alaska Airlines, expanding to other airlines - because they knew that it was a necessary act to make people feel safer to fly. People bought tickets based upon United's promise.

United has now broken that promise, and now appears to be trying to pull back on the promise see https://www.washingtonpost.com/trave...ge%2Fstory-ans

The bottom line is that people are NOT going to willingly set with their noses/eyes/mouths 8" (or closer) from some stranger. And I might add that I am even more scared to be sitting next to someone who thinks that this is a good idea.

United's new "promise" - we will sell out pack our planes,and if you are uncomfortable with that, we will let you wait for a flight that has enough space for you to have social distance - is a clear signal to avoid United at any price.

It's one thing to be upset with United for crappy J/F food, tight seats, surly flight attendants, uncomfortable seats. But safety is the core basic key thing in buying an airline ticket. United has just shown that it takes passengers safety less safe than shady third world airlines flying old Russian planes.

As an example...

goalie-parents are finally flying home PBI-IAD-SFO tomorrow (May, 13th) after pushing their trip from April 15th. The equipment on the only non-stop IAD-SFO is a 319. If goalie-parents are notified that their IAD-SFO flight is more than 70% full and want to take a different flight to fly home, the only non-stop option IAD SFO is the same flight on subsequent days but the small equipment still exists and they could still be met with the same problem the next day, the day after that, the day after that and so on...

My solution: Just fly a larger aircraft and actually block and not sell middle seats. Yes, it might not be economically efficient for UA but UA needs to suck it up during these trying times the same as many of us are

*goalie-parents were originally non-stop FLL-SFO and that got axed and the best option was via IAD (n.b. they are not flying via EWR or IAH as that is, imho, not COVID-smart)

This can be filed under "There is no pleasing some people"

If UA was completely blocking middle seats and guaranteeing they would be empty then people on here would complain that they are abusing taxpayer funds and breaching their fiduciary duty. Unless of course they were charging for the empty seat (like F9) in which case they would be abusing their customers.
If UA sells the seats and the plane goes out full then they are putting everyone's health at risk and abusing their customers.

They never guaranteed the middle seats would be empty and the day that it was posted people picked apart that detail.
https://hub.united.com/united-corona...200512&S_HASH=

however, fly a larger plane at a loss of say $100k or fly the right size plane at a loss of $1k. Regardless of the situation, any one of us all know what the right action would be so long as there is no operational safety concern or legal limitation.

This is ridiculous. No doubt it is what Kirby is thinking, but it is crazy talk. United can make people feel comfortable to start to fly again, and it can start to add more planes, allowing them to fly at 70% capacity and then get the number of passangers up, begain to restart the aviation system. Or they can scare the crud out of passengers so they will not fly, and then fly planes like was the case a month ago with 2-3-4 people on the plane.

Congress gave the industry $50B - to allow them to keep the system alive and not think on a flight by flight basis. United is back to being penny wise but pound foolish.

I will make one final comment, which is that the Boeing CEO - who gotta say is honest, rare these days - just flat out said (a) the US aviation sector is going to significantly lag other countries, saying that US traffic levels will not be back to 25% in the fall, and (b) that at least one US carrier would be liquidated by this fall when the Covid-19 $$$ runs out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willhor.../#3059ef8e344a b

This is a major, major mistake by United, and IMHO substantially increases the chance that UA ends up liquidated. Having a brand that is associated with spreading disease and broken promises is NOT the way to stay an operating concern. Just a basic question: Given a choice between flying on Delta (or AS or B6) and a promise of an empty middle or United with a promise that they will fill the plane, but let you know when you get there that you can take another plane (which might be full too) if you don't want to sit with your face 8" from another, who are you going to fly?

I gotta go to NYC in early July, and you can bet the last airline who I am every going to fly is United, ditto on the 4 trips I need to schedule to Seattle.

Such liars. Thought they kept sending emails saying were keeping middle seats empty. Airlines lie. Said they were keeping middle seats empty and do everything to protect passengers. . Blah blah blah. https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/05...united-flight/ .

UA doesn't need to make anyone feel comfortable to sell seats. Every flight that I've been on in the last week has been full.

And, if you are to believe the news media, the biggest threat to humanity isn't a deadly new virus but global warming/climate change, and wasting fuel flying a much larger plane than needed just wastefully increases the carbon footprint of each pax. Throwing away fuel with no quantifiable benefit other than making people feel better is silly.

Not lobbying for larger aircraft as a solution, but clearly there is a need to consider additional frequencies using smaller single-aisle aircraft such as those parked 737-7/8/9s.

I am for keeping middle seats open for safe distancing, but flexibility to react to travel demand should be adopted. UA should have advance knowledge how full the planes will be and can react accordingly by scheduling an additional fight (from the hub airports at least where some planes may be parked)

One cannot just pointing to media or bloggers narrowing in on United for bad press, it takes two to clap. UA should look at itself why they have been doing a terrible job in terms of negative publicity.

Except that they did guarantee such a thing:

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100% in agreement.

I've read for years various posts on this board about how UA some way or another did something that was finally going to cause the poster to book away from United. I've always thought those posts were silly, and wondered why people get so worked up about some CSR who is having a bad day and yelled at them. It happens.

But now, I'm that person who is utterly done with UA.

This decision by UA defies logic. Until we hit herd immunity or this pandemic somehow becomes a non-issue, I will not fly United again, nor will my family. The only way this changes is if UA guarantees an empty seat next to you.

I disagree. UA's traffic for April 2020 was what, 5-10% of what it was for April 2019? UA is not doing well, it is in a fight for its life. Maybe they've run the numbers and come to a different conclusion, but when your traffic is down so low, giving people a reason to book away from UA for the sake for getting the few remaining flights up from 60% to 90% capacity probably makes little sense.