UA experience of flying COVID+ or next to someone that is?
 

Does anyone have first hand experience flying (or attempting to fly) as a COVID+ traveler? Or if you've traveled near someone that was COVID+ on-board, what did UA communicate to you?

With the testing regime up for Hawaii flights, there's a larger volume of flyers that know their status. It looks like AA will prevent you from flying and will ban you for flying for 2 weeks after a positive test result, even if you subsequently test negative. Does UA do something similar?

As the other thread (and Hawaii forum) shows, some confirmed positives flew to Hawaii in recent days on United even when they tested negative before travel. With people in the same row and 2 rows forward/back subject to quarantine and testing, does United do anything about that...or is that strictly a health department process? If you were within the zone of that confirmed in-flight positive, does UA prevent you from traveling for x number of days?

With more locations doing pre-travel testing, I imagine even more people will become COVID-aware. Im curious what UA's communication and travel policies have been to date and what they could be as things evolve.

Well - full stop. You attest you do not have Covid with flying.

If you knowingly have Covid and fly - you should be subject to the full force of the law or if no force of the law - banned for life from the airline.

I believe this is happening every day and not just to Hawaii and not just on United. People who have symptoms and should know better, or who are known to be positive, are out there shopping, eating in restaurants, and flying on airplanes.

The best defense we have does not yet exist - an instant read test, much like a temperature check, that can determine someone's status, maybe like a breathalyzer which can be used before allowing someone in an airport, restaurant or any enclosed space. If you are informed of your result and then go back out to try your luck in public again (I'm talking to you, Orange County CA), then you get hauled off to a quarantine center to be held in a room until you are declared virus free.

So far, aside from Hawai'i, I don't believe United asks you if you are sick or not, or does it? I haven't flown UA since last Feb so I don't know what they are doing these days.

UA requires passengers to self certify their fitness / "Ready-to-fly" on Check-in, have done this since May/June. Believe most airlines presently require this.
United Airlines Asks All Passengers to Take Health Self-Assessment as Part of Check-In Process

And then there's passengers dying of COVID in flight. So even is someone feels some symptoms, they're still boarding planes.

Woman in her 30s dies in-flight waiting to take off

Yes, they do. At check in, there is a screen you where you have to self-certify that you haven't tested positive for COVID, haven't come in contact with someone who has tested for COVID, etc. That said, because it's up to the traveler to answer truthfully, it's pretty much lip service and tying to look like they care - without testing before departure, etc., who's to say it's not easy to just say no, no matter what.

I'm not sure what the penalty is if you lie and fly when infected or potentially so. But they do ask. You'd think people would be smart enough to stay out of the public if they were potentially infected, but let's face it, not all are. One (of many) good reasons not to fly at the moment unless it's absolutely necessary.

But I assume there is no penalty for lying on the declaration and then being responsible for sickening other people, potentially fatally, without recourse aside from possibly being banned from flying United for some unknown length of time, nor will United, I assume, contact everyone who was on that flight and tell them they were potentially infected (not just a couple rows) nor would United disclose the name of that passenger without a court order, so someone needs to be sued first to force disclosure.

It's not a United specific problem, it's a broader travel problem that needs sharper teeth to improve compliance.

UA (and every other airline's) self-certification is simply another way to make the general public feel safer about flying so they go out and buy a ticket and take a trip. It also probably helps to cover UA's liability. I don't see this as any different than "security" personnel asking you if you packed your own bag.

As for knowing you have a contagious disease and exposing yourself to the public anyways, it is anyone's guess when it comes to legality. This would depend on the creativity and skill of the prosecutor and whim of the jury. UA is a private company that can do whatever they want. They could ban you for life or do nothing. I have a feeling any severe action they take would have a lot to do with (social) media coverage of such an event.

As for sitting next to someone that is COVID+ or has any contagious disease, you never know and it is a risk you take anytime you get on a plane or go out in public. The only way to be 100% sure is to stay at home and isolate yourself from everything.

There are laws in many states against knowingly spreading a communicable disease.

As regards to UA, I certainly hope they would make good on their 'loss of flight privileges' threat in that hypothetical.

I believe that people who are tested Covid+ tend to be responsible and stay away from others and yes UA does ask you to check the boxes claiming your not a covid risk. However, the % of asymptomatic cases are fairly large especially for the young and healthy. These are also the people who are more likely to eat in restaurants and less likely to seek tests. I believe (just my opinion); if flyers diligently wear their masks, it is worth the risk to get on the planes and get where you need to go. Unfortunately, my last flight on UA, the people (on both side of the aisle) in the row behind me chose to talk loudly most of the flight with their face uncovered. During the 4 hour flight the FAs might have reminded them to cover their face 3 or 4 times. These passengers complied for maybe 10 minutes. Then, it was back to loud talking with the masks covering the chin. When they were not talking, their masks do not cover their noses. It is scary and frustrating to be less than 36 inches from the source of projecting spits.

Focusing in on OP's question, the simple answer is that if one is C19+, one may not fly. Whether there are criminal, civil or internal consequences is a different issue. Thus, in theory there is no person who knows that they are C19+ or displaying symptoms. This does not accommodate those who have not been tested, but are C19+ and asymptomatic nor does it take into account the intentional liars.

Thus, an imperfect solution, but it's all about risk and things that reduce risk are good.

But other than allowing passengers to self-certifying all is well, it seems United really has no process for dealing with COVID+ on-board. No one has posted their experience with being caught-up in on-board contact tracing yet.

United's responsibility is when health authorities inform UA of a positive passenger, is to supply the passenger manifest for contact tracing - for which contact tracing should be left to the health authorities. I don't see UA's responsibility in addition to the pre-flight questionnaire to be more than that.

Not necessarily Covid related, but a passenger sitting next to me on EWR-FLL today had a seizure for the first time in her life.

A medic who happened to be onboard responded. When things calmed down, the FA used his tablet to document the incident & compensate the medic. After the FA choose the most severe category of assistance in medical emergency, the system gave him a $75 ETC.

:o

Its very interesting that media didn't make headline about a passenger death due to Covid while onboard an airplane!

:confused: they are ... which is why we have this thread ...

Even FT:Texas Confirms COVID-19 Death Aboard Aircraft

David

Why is why I don't see travel ever picking up again at a normal pace until there is a highly reliable, instant-read test that can be applied to each passenger during their journey into the airport (or hotel/mall/building). You read positive, back outside to do a nasal or blood test to confirm, you read negative, you can come inside. Couple that with a vaccine, and we might even have buffets again one day.

Travel will only pick up to normal pace after a vaccine has been made available to majority of the population. Any other scenario is pollyannaish.

Nor should UA have any such process. This is a public health matter and it is dealt with -- if at all -- by local jurisdictions.

United is most definitely responsible for both reporting an onboard contagion and informing every passenger who was on board their inbound and outbound flights, and anyone who might have been at their gate or any of the adjacent gates.

It happened back in July, info has just been released (3 months after), it occurred on Spirit flight (middle seat was not blocked), obviously they did not inform other passengers onboard, otherwise we would have heard this news 90 days ago. Spirit LAS-DFW flight.
I am pretty sure there are a handful of covid positive on every flight!
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/he...c-8f43610a0ca4

Either way I agree you can't really expect a different outcome from an airline, when their gate agent takes COVID safety measures so seriously:
note: its OAK based gate agent.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6a90e81a5.jpeg

United runs an airline. Contact tracing should be managed by professionals under the guidance of local health authorities. United has an obligation to produce a manifest with contact information requested from local health authorities - an airline does not have the expertise to do its own contact tracing or follow up questions.

Going back to the original question, what happens if you get a positive result from the Hawaii pre-departure test? I know that in theory you can’t fly UA for 14 days (and you declare your compliance with this at check-in). Does UA enforce this through the honor system? Or do they temporarily “ban” you and actually prevent you from checking in / boarding your flight? If it’s the former, I’d guess there’s a lot of COVID positive travelers flouting the rules.

Hilarious. I got more than 2x that amount several months ago when the power at my seat wasn't working.

I see this every day when I interact with restaurant, hotel, supermarket, superstore, Post Office, etc. staff. The "nose out" thing is almost comically widespread. The FAs on UA have been pretty good IME.

UA lets a COVID positive patient fly ORD-HNL
 

Seriously, your checklist to be ready to fly, requires that you " have not received a positive COVID test" rather than requiring that "you have received a negative test result". Who's the idiot who designed that checklist???

"The passenger started the trip with a "pending" test result, which exposes the loophole that allowed this to happen. Oddly, Hawaii-bound passengers are not required to show their negative test results at mainland airports prior to boarding. Instead, Hawaii's Health Department checks the passengers' test results when they get off the plane in the islands. Which means you can get a test before flying, not know your results when you board and test positive upon arrival."

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/articl...P-CP-Spotlight

There's never been a requirement that a passenger prove they're COVID19-free before boarding a domestic flight. Who here could make the claim they were COVID-free before boarding their last domestic flight?

There is no requirement of a negative COVID test before flying by any airline. And for Hawai'i, there is no prohibition arriving testing positive, it does mean you must quarantine

Sure it is common sense and CDC guidelines you should not board knowingly positive but with 40% asymptomatic it will happen until mandatory pre-flight testing is required -- which it is not except for this new UA Launches World's First Free Transatlantic COVID-19 Testing pilot program. Maybe this will become the future of travel.

There absolutely needs to be a test taken before even entering the airport. This 72hr business is just nonsense, someone can pick up the virus 24hrs or even 3hrs before departure. A more certain test that only takes moments to confirm should be on the priority list of the pharmaceutical industry as a requirement to begin opening up pretty much every facet of society, not just air travel. While United did not design the Hawai'i test rules, I think both the state govt and the airline industry needs to take a step back and prioritize rapid testing, probably by quick-prick blood drop, to clear passengers into the airport terminal before departure, certainly if the airline industry wants to see travel return to normal anytime soon.

(Full disclosure: I've had both the nasal and the blood/serology tests come back negative in the past 24 hours because a client I'm visiting requires serology for access to their facilities and the clinic I went to said (and explained why) that didn't make any sense so I decided to to do both while I was there but)...

I thought at one point the UA checklist included a "have not tested positive or have a pending test result" -- though it seems based on upthread either that got changed or I am misremembering about the "pending" detail -- which in and of itself provides a strong disincentive from testing: If you have none of the symptoms and can honestly answer the other questions, with inconsistent test return times (I was quoted 3-6 days for the nasal and 3-?? days for the blood, wound up being basically 2.5 and 3 respectively) in that scenario there is no good that can come from being tested. Either you're testing so far out that by the time the flight happens you have any number of other exposure possibilities to ensure a result by departure time or you're unnecessarily disqualifying yourself from flying because the result is pending -- which without symptoms is really no different not having a test at all.

Clearly if there are symptoms, known exposures, etc. that informs a very different result but in the current environment testing is a bad single-point disqualifier -- not only with the speed of return but also the difficulty in getting tested. I live in an area with robust and well respected healthcare enterprises, including the Cleveland Clinic. I'm 36 and don't have a PCP (yeah, should probably change that but I tend to pass out discussing anything medical or in/near their facilities so I keep putting it off)... I had to call 15 different places in my county on the Ohio DPH's list of "places that do Covid testing" before I found one that could schedule the test in less than two weeks and also that was willing to do the test without a PCP/Doctor's orders, and no symptoms. There were places that would test with a Dr.'s orders but without symptoms, With symptoms but without Dr.'s orders -- but neither in any kind of short timeframe (like the "72 hours before departure" that seems to have become defacto-ish) is a significant barrier to entry.

Edited to Add: Checked in for my next round of flights this morning and the checklist does, in fact, include a "You are not waiting for the results of any COVID test" -- so I'll reiterate that that on its own seems like a significant disincentive for testing.

"She also had underlying high-risk health conditions".

Just so we all know.

I find this knocking on the door of "false advertising", especially since one UA passenger ORD-HNL flew positive. Not to mention how many have probably flown asymtomatically, or with minor symptoms, but not tested. Without testing every passenger, UA (or anyone else) does not know what the exposure risk is. I guess I would find "low" somewhat acceptable vs "almost non-existent"...


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a0603591f6.jpg

Not just false advertising, but by sponsoring the "study", United is setting itself up for legal liability claims should people get sick. It's an enticement to undertake behavior on a claim by United that "nothing to see here, this is perfectly safe". Good luck with that, especially from an airline that was packing flights as full as possible from day one. This nonsense "study" is probably being used to justify the lack of middle seat blocking and the half-a**ed enforcement of the mask policy.

as a lawyer, i'm stunned that UA's legal department is evidently giving the PR team the unrestricted green light to widely use language like "non-existent."

i wonder what sort of internal discussions have taken place w/r/t specific language allowed to be used, and whether we'll see any sort of recalibration in the coming weeks vis-à-vis the 'second wave' we're now beginning to experience.

The thing businesses have going for them (including United) is plausible deniability because of the long incubation time and the large percentage of symptomless spreaders/superspreaders which means that it's often impossible to trace most cases back to a particular venue. The number of people who tested positive and/or had symptoms or who didn't but silently passed it to others within a week of flying is certainly a LOT LOT LOT higher than the 44 *worldwide* number the IATA is claiming. And then dividing it by 1.2 billion passengers (a lopsided share of which has to be from before the shutdowns, before the virus was really spreading) seems very disingenuous.

And other studies assume complete mask compliance, sitting silently facing forward. The goober nursing his "snack" or "drink" with mask off, the family loudly talking and laughing behind you, and the the person arguing in the aisle with the crew without a mask are all putting the rest at higher risk than those assumptions. I get that they're losing money and want people to fly, but making stuff up makes a lot of us who see through that less likely to do so.

And below is on the app.

Note they show a Polaris cabin, which is good as it gets on a full plane, in terms of spacing.”almost zero” instead of “almost non-existent”.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...383dfd27eb.png

stunned? UA legal knows suing them is difficult due to airline deregulation act and the high bar it would take to prove COVID is rampant on airplanes which so far seems to be not the case.

This has nothing to do with the Airline Deregulation Act which does not insulate an airline business from being successfully sued for committing fraud.