They are already mandated in several states including PA and NY. I'd assume that would extend to airlines. Canada mandates all airline travelers to wear a mask as well.

Oh, come on, that's ridiculous. While it is true that a flight being full doesn't guarantee that it's profitable, surely it's obvious that a flight being empty guarantees that it's not.

This is what is known as "marketing." You surely cannot expect United to tell the truth, which is that nothing they do is going to make a material difference in people's safety.

"Social distancing" seat map confusion
 

Ran into an odd one tonight. Looking at flight #372 HNL-SFO for May 28. The seat map on the App shows 0 FC seats available for sale or assignment. The desk top version on ua.com shows 0 for sale but 11 available to assign. Called the 1K desk and they verified 0 for sale but saw the 11 available for assignment. The agent didn't know what to make of it. Is it possible this is the beginning of keeping seats open for social distancing? That would make sense, but the seats taken in FC all seem to be bunched (maybe assigned before social distancing went into effect). Thoughts? As a side note, there are a bunch of middle seats in Y that are open to assign.

Its most likely a flight they dont plan on operating unless they see passenger demand.

Lots of the EWR - SFO/LAX routes with multiple flights per day in May have atleast 1 of said flights showing 0 FC flights for sale. My guess is they dont want to overbook J.

Ordinarily, I might agree with you but not in this case. There is only 1 flight per day each way to/from Hawaii and the mainland now that UA got approval to discontinue service to all other islands..... this one. I'm leaning to social distancing meets UA IT.

Do you already have a ticket on this flight, or are you looking to buy one?

UA is not planning to fly the plane half-empty, up front, If that's what you're thinking. The seat blocking could be anything, but the inventory being zeroed out is likely because they consolidated all of their Hawaiian passengers to one plane. It wouldn't surprise me if it were actually oversold up front, as they expect people to cancel. It's just that some people don't have seat assignments yet.

I'm currently ticketed on the flight in Y. The ideal for me would be for a light load and snag a row of 3 and stretch out away from other passengers.

Your explanations all make sense. I was just commenting that the App and ua.com seat maps for F are totally different. The App shows 0 seats to select in F while .com shows 11 seats available for selection. Neither has actual F seats available for sale. I've just never seen the seat maps differ between the App & .com

Yeah, I noticed that there are 11 seats blocked on ExpertFlyer if you select the F cabin, but if you select the J cabin, they're empty. I wonder if UA just mis-coded something, and the app is looking up the J seat map whereas the web is using F.

Could very well be the case. I just checked via Expert Flyer again and there are 0 F seats showing available now. Must have been a "bad pointer" and they fixed it. Thanks for the insight.

That actually dates back to when they did the JCDZP realignment for domestic F and then had the issue of whether you could select the 3-class F seats on Business fares.

All middle seats blocked on upcoming flight
 

This is making me feel better about a trip I have to take. LAX-EWR
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6ebf119660.jpg

Seems like it took them several days to get this fully rolled out, but I think it is now active systemwide.

Yup. Here is the official statement from United when trying to change seat...
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...646b0d833e.jpg

This is a positive step, but I'm not sure it will really lead to much distancing. They are blocking seats only for "advanced selection". If I read that right, once you get to the airport those seats can be assigned if a) a couple/family wants to sit together or b) they sell enough seats that those middle seats are needed.

With the drastic reduction in capacity (in many cases only 1 non-stop between cities where there used to be as many as 5-6) the odds are those seats will be needed. That means a lot of "touch points" between staff and passengers handing out boarding passes and people likely crowding the podium wanting seat assignments.

I applaud their initiative, but I'm concerned the execution might be challenging in meeting real social distancing goals.

Correct.

It's nothing but theater. The airlines cannot stay in business allocating 28 square feet* of airplane to every passenger. They're reticent to admit this in the current environment, so they're taking these measures as a marketing step. The only way to fly whilst adhering to the CDC distancing guidelines is private.

* r = 3 feet in πr²