Why Some Airlines Are Blocking Seats While Others Aren’t

Why Some Airlines Are Blocking Seats While Others Aren’t

People wearing face masks are seen on an airplane from Cairo to Hurghada, Egypt, on June 18, 2020.



Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images



There is in interesting game of chicken going on in the airline industry right now. Should airlines sell all of the seats on their flights or block some to help keep people a little further apart for now? No one one seriously thinks that you can properly socially distance on an airplane, but wearing masks and having an empty seat next to you does add to the sense that the risk is not high, especially compared to other areas with close gatherings.



Gordon Bethune, the successful CEO of Continental Airlines back in the 1990s, used to say that airline industry was only as smart as its dumbest competitor. He used this statement often in regards to pricing, when frustrated that other airlines would run a fare sale at times he felt demand was in the airlines' favor. Now, is it fair to say that those blocking seats are being dumb or that those selling all their seats are being dumb? It depends on how far ahead you are thinking.



I wrote earlier that one of