As social media images of fuller flights spark health concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic -- Democratic lawmakers and unions are calling for federal action to mandate social distancing policies on planes.The number of U.S. travelers screened by the Transportation Security Administration is down over 90% compared to this time last year, but the number of available flights has also been slashed considerably.
"I guess @united is relaxing their social distancing policy these days?" Ethan Weiss tweeted, a cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.MORE: Doctor says cross-country United Airlines flight was scarier than volunteering in COVID-19 hospital ward
"In the long-term, that's a business model that cannot be sustained," Calio said at a Senate hearing last week."Because if we can't -- if it costs more to fly people from point A to point B -- it's a total money-losing proposition which then means it's a job-loss proposition." At the time, the DOT directed ABC News to the Federal Aviation Administration , which responded in a statement that it's"not a public health agency," but that it had been lending its aviation safety expertise to federal public health authorities.
This is so old. Where you on vacation, yahoo?
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This is because airlines are having (in some airports) one or two flights a day to certain major cities, IAH has majority of flights leaving Houston either 9am or 7pm. Leaving check in areas and security lines packed all at one time, and flights being consolidated and packed.