November Comes Into Focus, International Faces a Long, Cold Winter

Schedule Changes

It’s been quite a week for the good residents of Airlineville. The Widget, the Animal, and Ms Blue all got together to release their plans for November, and they don’t look overly-promising. More will undoubtedly come next week. But that wasn’t the only news.

The Eagle has finally admitted defeat, slashing and burning in Europe through the winter. If you were hoping to spend your winter holidays in a quaint English cottage — you know you’ve seen The Holiday — well, you have a lot fewer options to get there now. Then again, your chances of being let in the door after spending the night with the Eagle — or anyone else — aren’t great anyway.

The Globe has similarly given up on the Great White North this winter. There isn’t much hope for a winter tryst. If anything is heating up, it’s Hawai’i. We’ll take the good news anywhere we can get it, but even that good news isn’t so great.

All this and more in this week’s episode. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.

Alaska Keeps Trimming October

Oh sure, there’s plenty going on in November, but Alaska is still fixated on October, cutting another 2.5 percent of flights for the month. It cut another one of its 3 daily flights on its only current Canada route, Seattle to Vancouver. But that was just an appetizer for the Hawai’i cuts.

Alaska has been operating 2 daily from Seattle to Honolulu with another one from Seattle to Kahului. Everything else was canceled up through October 14, but the next day it was all coming back. That’s the day the quarantine gets lifted for those with a negative COVID test. No longer. Now, only 2 daily from Seattle to both Kona and Lihu’e will come back. Nothing else new will return this month any longer.

There are other little adjustments here and there, but only three are for the long run. Alaska is bulking up LAX by adding one additional daily flight to Boise, Guadalajara, and Salt Lake City starting December 17 and running through the winter.

American Guts Europe This Winter

American has hoping that things would pick up this winter. It boldly decided to fly its full London schedule as the backbone of its European service. It has now come to the realization that this just isn’t going to work. So, schedules are being torn up through the end of March when the IATA winter season ends. Here’s the carnage:

  • Boston – London/Heathrow won’t operate
  • Charlotte – London/Heathrow cut from 2x daily to 3x weekly
  • Charlotte – Munich won’t operate
  • Chicago/O’Hare – London/Heathrow cut from 3x daily to 1x daily
  • Dallas/Fort Worth – Amsterdam cut from 1x daily to 3x weekly
  • Dallas/Fort Worth – Dublin won’t operate
  • Dallas/Fort Worth – London/Heathrow cut from 24x weekly to 1x daily
  • Los Angeles – London/Heathrow won’t operate
  • Miami – Barcelona won’t operate
  • Miami – London/Heathrow cut from 2x daily to 1x daily
  • New York/JFK – London/Heathrow cut from 27x weekly to 1x daily
  • New York/JFK – Paris/CDG won’t operate
  • Philadelphia – London/Heathrow won’t operate
  • Philadelphia – Madrid won’t operate
  • Phoenix – London/Heathrow won’t operate
  • Raleigh/Durham – London/Heathrow won’t operate

Whew, that’s brutal. Asia sees a couple cuts as well. Dallas/Fort Worth – Seoul/Incheon drops from 1x daily to 3x weekly through the winter and Dallas/Fort Worth – Hong Kong’s restart has been delayed from October 24 to December 17.

The Caribbean sees cuts as well with Bonaire, Curacao, and Grand Cayman having flights pushed back into November and December. Over in the Pacific, Hawai’i sees most restarts pushed until October 15, but LAX to Honolulu also gets cut from 2 daily to 1 for the rest of that month, indicating weakness is still expected.

Delta’s First Stab at November

I know, I know. You’ve been waiting for November details. Here we are. In the November schedule — used November 11-17 to steer clear of the holiday — Delta is planning on operating 60 percent of flights versus last year. That’s about 62 percent of domestic flights and 40 percent of international. This is growth from October, but it’s still pretty light considering Delta continues to block middle seats.

Meanwhile in October, Delta has pushed the restart of Atlanta to both Lima and Santiago along with JFK to Frankfurt into November. JFK to Sao Paulo won’t come back until December 18 and LA to Tokyo/Haneda comes back the next day now. Oh, and JFK to Barcelona is gone all the way to April 1. On the bright side, Boston – Edinburgh is back in the schedule next summer, starting May 27. So, yay?

On the domestic front, it looks like Providence has drawn the short straw. After seeing service slashed, it is now being dropped entirely for the winter. As of now, it comes back March 1. We’ll see about that. Salt Lake to Anchorage will start year-round on November 20, so that’s a little good news. LA to Fort Lauderdale comes into the network on November 20. I flew that back in the Song days, but this, I assume, is all about poking JetBlue in the eye. Minneapolis/St Paul – Jackson Hole makes a holiday appearance.

Frontier Cuts November

Frontier has also taken a look at its November schedule and thought it was too robust. It is now planning to operate about half of last year’s November schedule. Four routes won’t operate at all: Orlando to Charlotte and Norfolk along with Phoenix to San Francisco and San Jose.

JetBlue Makes Its November Moves

JetBlue has whacked November as well, now looking to operate almost exactly half the number of flights it operated last year.

In the shorter term, however, JetBlue has cut more flying in October. Newark – Sarasota is gone while Charleston, Jacksonville, and San Francisco see frequency cuts. It’s surprising to see several Florida markets lose flights. Some are strongholds like JFK to Fort Myers and Tampa. Others are new routes like Philly to West Palm Beach. (Philly to San Juan, the last of the Philly flights to avoid cuts, loses a frequency as well.)

LaGuardia to Fort Myers and Tampa disappear completely in October, as do Orlando to San Francisco and West Palm Beach to both Chicago/O’Hare and Pittsburgh. There also may be some trouble in paradise in October. From its new LAX focus city, Vegas is being cut from 2x to 1x daily. Reno and Seattle both go from 4x to 3x weekly. And San Francisco drops from 2x daily to a mere 4x weekly.

In the long run, Hartford nonstops to Cancun, LA, San Francisco, and Vegas were all loaded at 1x daily. Newark – LA gets bumped up from 34 weekly to 40.

United Crushes Canada

Every month, Canada and the US extend their border closure by one more month. United isn’t having any of it. It is just canceling things up north for a longer period. The winter schedule will remain a skeleton until February 11 with just these flights:

  • Calgary – Denver 1x daily
  • Montreal – Washington/Dulles 1x daily
  • Toronto – Washington/Dulles 1x daily, Chicago/O’Hare 2x daily
  • Vancouver – Denver 1x daily, San Francisco 2x daily

As you can see, there are no flights to Canada from Newark at all, nor Los Angeles or Houston.

It’s been one ugly week, so let’s end on a positive note. United has loaded Chicago/O’Hare to Kona and Newark to Kahului, both routes announced earlier. They’ll start on June 3 and both will operate 4x weekly.

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41 comments on “November Comes Into Focus, International Faces a Long, Cold Winter

  1. It is hard to see how Canada and the US – normally sharing the longest, most valuable peaceful border – can’t figure out how to open the border w/ negative test results. Same for continental Europe.
    Covid has produced fear, not a desire to meaningfully manage a health crisis. Canada and East Asia had far worse case results from previous infectious diseases.
    Lufthansa is trying desperately to get intercontinental flights moving w/ testing. Other airlines need to follow suit.
    A year with very limited international travel (most of the market for many global airlines) will cripple the industry permanently even with government aid.

    1. Hi Tim,”It is hard to see how Canada and the US – normally sharing the longest, most valuable peaceful border – can’t figure out how to open the border w/ negative test results. Same for continental Europe.”

      No it’s quite easy – Canada is paying more attention to what’s happen beyond their own borders than we are within. Based on that, it’s keeping it’s borders closed & yet there’s been a second wave of infections in recent days.

      ” Covid has produced fear, not a desire to meaningfully manage a health crisis. Canada and East Asia had far worse case results from previous infectious diseases.”

      But the prior outbreaks you speak of such as SARS didn’t spread as greatly & we didn’t have governments who weren’t as neglectful to their citizens as we are seeing today.

      “Lufthansa is trying desperately to get intercontinental flights moving w/ testing. Other airlines need to follow suit.
      A year with very limited international travel (most of the market for many global airlines) will cripple the industry permanently even with government aid.”

      Unfortunately that’s the reality. We all want to see a robust aviation network, but this pandemic & it’s aftermath may prove otherwise.

      And now I am Dunn.

      1. Sean,
        Canada’s per capita case rate as well as in many east Asia countries was much higher during SARS 1 than the US. This whole thing is about timing, not who did anything better.

        And Canada has internal border controls (ie you can’t freely move even within the country) right now so it is about stripping away economic activity and freedom of movement in the name of stopping a disease that is statistically nowhere near equally deadly to all demographics.

        There are multiple surveys that show that most Americans vastly overestimate their own risk from covid. It simply is not a deadly disease to the vast majority of people and does not produce life-threatening symptoms for the majority of people.

        Never in the history of humanity has the world locked down entire economies in order to protect a relatively small percentage of people that should be protected from most types of contagious diseases.

        At some point, businesses, economies and rational governments have to employ risk-based decisions about returning to normal.

        Again, you can’t condemn rational, logical people from making the decision to vacation and travel to places that are willing to receive them. If others do not feel safe to travel or leave their homes, they are free to stay at home and not receive people into their home that could be a viral risk to them.

        1. Tim,
          We simply don’t know enough about the disease to make those conclusions. Especially the long-term effects for a significant portion of people who suffer moderate to severe cases (long-term damage to lungs, heart, etc.). While the plane itself might be the safest portion of the travel experience, getting to and from the plane gives your destinations gives a significant increase in risk of exposure. The rational thing to do is to mitigate those risks by not traveling until a vaccine (or combination of vaccines) is developed, proven effective, and distributed. This is especially true when most people can fairly effectively use teleconference/video conference alternatives from home offices. Unfortunately, this means that it is likely to be the end of 2021 o 2022 before people will feel safe to travel. I doubt that business travel will return to pre-pandemic levels for several years as businesses realize they don’t have to pay for travel and get the same level of productivity using alternate solutions.

    2. The Canadian public is extremely against letting Americans in at the moment. Unless the Canadian public starts to view America as taking COVID more seriously, that isn’t going to change. Just putting things into perspective, the Canadian gov’t would not even allow the Blue Jays to play home games in Toronto when MLB has a far more robust testing/COVID policy in place than what general public would have access to. And they had spent weeks negotiating how this could be done.

      I think America is going to have to get its case count down if the airlines want to see TATL and transborder restrictions lifted.

      US carriers are lucky that at least its still has a large domestic market along with island travel. European carriers are the ones who are really in trouble. Just this past week, a report came out that Easyjet is hanging by a thread.

      1. As FC noted,

        “The Canadian public is extremely against letting Americans in at the moment. Unless the Canadian public starts to view America as taking COVID more seriously, that isn’t going to change. Just putting things into perspective, the Canadian gov’t would not even allow the Blue Jays to play home games in Toronto when MLB has a far more robust testing/COVID policy in place than what general public would have access to. And they had spent weeks negotiating how this could be done.”

        And what does that tell you – we don’t have our house in order over this pandemic & until we do… we cant join the rest of the first world.

    3. There are big pro-closure polling numbers in Canada. That being the case, it would be a brave Canadian govt that opened the border in advance of convergence of Canadian and US Covid infections. At this point, the Canadians see a closed border as a matter of self-preservation, and they’re not wrong.

      There are consequences for the US not getting on top of its Covid infection, and the rest of the world seeing us as pariahs is one of them. We’re a plague ship, a leper colony, as far as a lot of the world is concerned.

      This is causing a lot of unhappiness along the border in US towns that depend on Canada for their livelihood (e.g. Plattsburgh, NY). The solution, however, lies not in Ottawa, but in Washington, DC.

  2. “LaGuardia to Fort Myers and Tampa disappear completely in October, as do Orlando to San Francisco and West Palm Beach to both Chicago/O’Hare and Pittsburgh.”

    You may not have herd the news, Gov, Desantis has loosened any & all pandemic restrictions including no enforcement of mask requirements. On that basis, it shouldn’t be a shock seeing FL flights being cut as who in their right mind would dare go where pandemic measures are in effect being ignored.

    As for AA, yikes.

    1. You must not be following what’s happening in the industry right now, virtually all bookings right now are to beach/outdoors locations like Florida….

  3. Sean,
    the per capita death rate for Florida is 13th out of 50 states which puts it in the bottom of the 1st quartile of the US. NY, NJ, CT, MA, MI plus MS, AZ, and LA are all higher than FL. Even CA’s case rate growth during the summer was similar to FL’s.
    And the US is still ranked 10th in the world in terms of deaths per capita behind a bunch of Latin America countries (which undoubtedly is impacting US case counts) plus Spain, Belgium and the US per capita death rate is only slightly higher than the UK. And every one of those entities are seeing increased case rates as well.

    So, unless you would like to argue that all of these other states and countries have been and continue to be irresponsible, then drawing the conclusion that reopening restaurants is the cause of FL’s case counts is flawed.

    The chances are very high that the people that are willing to engage in international travel are different socio-demographically and may be different from those willing to travel domestically as well.

    Even with a vaccine, there is not expected to be a rapid decrease in cases; people and companies and economies need to figure out how to return to some sense of cautious normal not unlike testing which Alaska has been doing for months and which Hawaii recognizes is the only way to save its economy from complete ruin.

    When other countries do the same, international travel will return. Until then, there will be people – perhaps more than normal – that will go to Florida because it is one of the few travel options that are available right now. You can’t slight Florida for doing what Florida has done very well for decades- cater to tourism – and allow people to make their own choice.

    Airlines will go where people are willing to spend money and where local economies are willing to welcome tourists. The fact that Florida is seeing fuller and fuller planes says there are people that are no longer willing to stay at home.

    1. Tim. Please stick to praising Delta rather than being a cheerleader for all airlines. Stick to travel rather than trying to imitate Fauci.

      1. I’m actually providing a considerably different narrative to Fauci.
        and, the entire world including the airline industry – and esp. AA and UA which are on the eve of laying off 30k employees – need rationality which is at the heart of why CF Is posting weekly updates showing how slow the airline industry is recovering from what is simply not a mortal threat to the vast majority of people in the US or the world.

        1. Tim,

          Please tell me where I mentioned anything in regards to CV’s mortality rate. The virus spreads quite easily where people are in close contact with one another & that has been established early on.

          “Until then, there will be people – perhaps more than normal – that will go to Florida because it is one of the few travel options that are available right now. You can’t slight Florida for doing what Florida has done very well for decades- cater to tourism – and allow people to make their own choice.”

          But this is not the case of “what happens in Florida stays in Florida. Once they leave, tourists “may” unknowingly spread the pandemic further as the state is no longer enforcing safety measures suggested by the CDC including facemasks. If a business wants to enforce such requirements, they must apply for a waver from the state.

  4. DL adding FLL-LAX seems rather suicidal to me. If they wanted to get into this market, they should’ve tried MIA-LAX, which would’ve helped their JV partner. That and keeping a solitary flight on BOS-CHS/CLE/RIC on socially distanced RJ seem like move that are done purely to poke at JetBlue. At a time when airlines should focus on conserving cash and/or making strategic plays for the future, DL is stuck in its old habits of holding grudges.

    1. FC – I don’t know if I’d say suicidal, because one route won’t kill the airline, but it certainly isn’t the move you’d make if you were actually trying to make decisions based on economics, that’s for sure. This is pretty clearly just a shot at JetBlue. It may result in lost money on this route, but if it scares JetBlue off, then Delta will think it will have been worth it.

  5. One of the questions remaining to be answered is whether travelers will board airliners in anything close to the same volume as before. To that end, Florida offers an optimal alternative for the simple reason that it’s a day or two days drive from most of the East and Midwest. Folks that otherwise would not fly because of fear of sharing germs can gain an ostensible degree of safety by driving. Governor DeSantis, by promoting the opening the state, recognizes that reality.

    Florida already lost untold billions of dollars in annual receipts due to the timing of Covid. Governor DeSantis made a decision by weighing all risks. We’ll see if he is correct.

    The larger questions looming behind Covid-19 are: (a) What will cause cities and states to end regulation (if anything); (b) What’s to keep states and local governments from imposing far-reaching restrictions again when and if we have another “threatening” public health problem? and, (c) How do we eradicate the level of fear that rests in every layer of society at the present time? These are all abstractions but they really need to be addressed both administratively and legislatively before our society returns to normal.

    Until we do (c) and work to build confidence, I’m afraid the airline industry will be a shadow of its former self. When we see fear in every human interaction, which tears at the core of who we are as intelligent beings, we don’t interact, we don’t discover and we don’t improve what we have and who we are. There’s legitimate reasons for being concerned about Covid-19, especially in the early days, but I’m fearful, as Mr. Dunn implies, that our fear will get the best of us.

    1. thank you, Davey.
      It is clear that fear, not rationality, is driving human behavior right now and has a profound impact on the future of the airline and larger travel and tourism industries but are indicators of much larger societal issues which you raise.
      While I agree with you that those questions should be answered, I doubt if they will either here or in any other democratic country.
      Covid is contagious – moreso than the flu and other regular parts of our environment. Covid is not uniformly impacting all segments of society; no disease does.
      There is far more data on covid than any other infectious disease in the history of humanity. There isn’t a soul that can tell me the daily death rates for any other infectious disease because no other disease has ever been tested and documented to the extent this one has. There are certain long-term issues from all diseases.
      The mortality rate for covid in the US and in the world is well below the natural rate of death which means it is not claiming more lives than other diseases on a cumulative basis. It is A disease. It is not THE disease.

      People need to make their own personal assessment of risk no different from what is done for other diseases and other lifestyle choices.
      If one does not wish to return to normal behavior, then they are free to remain at home.
      Those that wish to save their businesses, travel and manage their own health risks need to be free to do so. We don’t tell people that they can’t do other activities because there is a health risk to it.

      specific to routes, Delta has flown S. Florida to LAX before and I suspect their return is related to a much more aggressive buildup of LAX as a whole.

      AA’s pullback of Europe simply highlights that there are carriers that have the financial ability to operate higher percentages of their pre-covid route systems than other carriers.

      Related to Europe, there are reports that B6 has obtained slots to begin service to LHR; if that is true, that highlights that they are able to move forward with their strategic plans and can likely do so because LHR will not be near as busy as it once was for years to come. If B6 has the financial strength to move forward with its plans and others are not, they should be commended for being financially strong enough to grow during crisis. The principle is no different from people who are snagging great deals in Florida because they are willing to venture out.

      1. “If one does not wish to return to normal behavior, then they are free to remain at home.
        Those that wish to save their businesses, travel and manage their own health risks need to be free to do so. We don’t tell people that they can’t do other activities because there is a health risk to it.”

        You’re putting me on aren’t you Tim. You think the publics reaction is unjustified about this pandemic? What do you know that the experts don’t.

        1. Sean:

          I don’t think anyone argued the severity early on. However, there has been a tendency when it comes to scientific issues to “trust the scientists,” as if they are totally objective and fact-driven without any sense of conjecture, personal opinion or, frankly, guessing.

          Since the beginning of Covid-19, I’ve argued for releasing the formulas and inputs that led to predictions about the spread of Covid and its severity. Only when those algorithms are public and clearly peer reviewed can we have a true understanding of the validity of opinions, expectations and reactions. The fact that comparatively few of these algorithms made it into the public domain is telling.

          The airline industry will make it back when the fear subsides. The fear will subside when people understand more about how dire predictions are made and, too often, how wrong they can be.

          1. “I don’t think anyone argued the severity early on. However, there has been a tendency when it comes to scientific issues to “trust the scientists,” as if they are totally objective and fact-driven without any sense of conjecture, personal opinion or, frankly, guessing.”

            So I gather you don’t believe these scientists. Of course there’s a certain degree of guesswork involved as there always is, but you are making a foolish argument when you say or imply they have some kind of agenda as you did here & it’s in your own words.

            So based on that, I’ll stick to scientific researchers who know what they are talking about.

  6. We’re probably on the verge of another outbreak in this country. Other places in the world are seeing an uptick in cases, like Canada, so we’re due again as well. The entire travel industry is going to be having issues for another year or so. So, none of this surprises me.

  7. For statistical purposes, does a blocked middle seat count as an ASM? I’d be real interested in seeing these stats not in terms of percent of flights but in percent of ASMs. I’m guessing there’s plenty of down-gauging (by plane or by seat blocking) and reduction of average stage length.

    1. Eric – Yep, a blocked middle seat does indeed count as an ASM. So Delta is really flying a lot fewer ASMs than the raw number indicates.

      1. Delta and Southwest right now are blocking similar levels of seats – but they also are free to change that metric at any time – and neither has committed to long-term seat blocking.
        If Delta or Southwest’s system load factors end up higher than the threshold where they block seats, then the seat blocking actually limited sales.

        Given that Delta has been pretty aggressive in upgrading flights to larger aircraft and WN has added extra sections, it is doubtful that either airline is really limiting their total passengers because of their seat sales policies.

        and I believe that B6 and AS are also still blocking seats.

        Of the largest airlines, AA and UA are the exception. In the last quarter, AAL’s yield was considerably lower than other carriers, indicating that trying to fill more seats in this environment really has not resulted in more revenue.

  8. Thanks for the great analysis as always!

    One thought that could make for an interesting update – could you do a look at if there are any “moves” being done in contested hubs / geographies?

    For example, is AA making moves on UA at ORD? Or perhaps in CLT vs. DL in ATL? Is someone building up LAX faster than another? Could be pretty interesting (my thought is less of the announced moves, like AS in LAX, vs. the unannounced stuff).

    1. John – Thanks for the suggestion. I usually point out if we see any big moves, but I don’t get into the weeds on these. If I notice trends, I’ll usually write them up.

  9. All of the back and forth about COVID reminds me of one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes, “There are three kinds of lies – lies, damned lies, and statistics.” A good friend’s mother passed away last week from the after effects of COVID. Tell him that his mother was simply another statistic. The airlines are doing the best they can to anticipate demand given all the restrictions. That’s all they can do.

    1. No one is ever just a statistic. There are real lives involved whether the issue is urban violence, heart disease, covid, or mental illness….

      but we as society deal w/ “statistics” regarding risks from driving on roads, airplane accidents, and nuclear threats.

      Airlines are responding to customer demand; governments are imposing restrictions based on their own philosophies.
      France said it will not lock down again; it and Spain (which had one of the highest number of deaths in the first round) are leading the return of covid in Europe.

      To the extent that we can control our own future, we have to manage our risk – whether it is losing weight, stop smoking, or staying in our home until an acceptable level of infectious disease risk has passed.

      We can’t condemn others that choose to carry on with life.

      No one is just a statistic but there is one universal statistic that we should all remember: the current mortality rate for homo sapiens is 100%.

      1. “To the extent that we can control our own future, we have to manage our risk – whether it is losing weight, stop smoking, or staying in our home until an acceptable level of infectious disease risk has passed.”

        How do you define such risk. Losing weight doesn’t have the same type of impact as staying home so you don’t spread a debilitating pandemic to others.

        “We can’t condemn others that choose to carry on with life.” Oh no? When your choices negatively impact others such as a time such as this, you can expect considerable blowback.

        1. Sean,
          One more factoid… there is a mass exodus of people out of northern, high tax states which have generally been much more restrictive in managing covid. Florida is by far the fastest growing state in the union. Other southern states including Georgia (which has a similar per capita death rate as Florida) as well as N. Carolina and Tennessee are seeing similar rates of people moving into their states. Texas is in the middle in terms of death rates and also continues to grow. Nearly all of the states that are losing people have higher death rates than those that are gaining people.

          In free societies, people make their own choices; governments also make choices. Each is responsible for their choices including of people leaving the control of governments that those people do not like.

          People will go to Florida both to visit and to live. Each of us is free to travel, move or stay put.

          Not even the most restrictive US states can bar you from leaving your home and going to Florida if you are willing to quarantine on your return. After months of being locked down, there is enormous pent up demand for travel. People are going to increasingly go where they want and can regardless of whether covid is eradicated or not. TSA statistics show steadily increasing numbers of travelers.

          States and foreign governments including France and other countries are opening up more, not less, even though covid is not eradicated.

          Those that are not comfortable with their own disease risk are free to stay in their own homes. There is no more risk to those people who stay at home from people traveling to Florida than there is if everyone stays home.

          1. “One more factoid… there is a mass exodus of people out of northern, high tax states which have generally been much more restrictive in managing covid. Florida is by far the fastest growing state in the union. Other southern states including Georgia (which has a similar per capita death rate as Florida) as well as N. Carolina and Tennessee are seeing similar rates of people moving into their states. Texas is in the middle in terms of death rates and also continues to grow. Nearly all of the states that are losing people have higher death rates than those that are gaining people.”

            What does this have to do with anything – I don’t get it. You’re talking about freedom & I’m talking not spreading a pandemic & not being selfish towards others in society. If you want to go to states that are less restrictive with Covid rules that is your right. However being stupid about it & spreading it intentionally as many are can have devastating effects. I cant see why you & a few others here are unable to see what is so obvious. It’s exhausting.

            1. quite frankly, there are large segments of the US population – your fellow citizens if you are an American – that do not agree with you.
              They simply do not see that their actions put others at risk.
              And those that do believe they are at risk are protecting themselves.
              The fact that Florida, Texas, Arizona and California – all of which had massive numbers of cases this summer – all have lower death rates per capita than NY, NJ, MA, MI and IL etc – in some cases HALF of the death rate of those states says that people have learned to deal w/ this virus and many people are carrying on with their lives.

              And people are moving where they won’t have to foot the bill for massive and lengthy lockdowns which have cost some governments enormous amounts of revenue.

              One more thing and then I am through for the day.

              The first large scale outbreak of covid was in Washington state in a nursing facility. most of us learned about covid because of what happened in that case.
              Washington state’s death rate is well below the US average. NY and NJ were hit later, locked down more aggressively, have remained locked down and still have far higher per capita death rates.

              There are far more factors involved than you want to admit.

              People going to Florida is not the reason for the massive differences in death rates between states.

              People are making their own lawful decisions about how they want to deal with this crisis.

              I am not sure why anyone can’t accept that the same freedom one has not to travel gives others the freedom to travel if they choose. and, no, there is no more risk to one person by someone else traveling if you stay home regardless. If you are at risk, then you can’t expect everyone else to stay home, somehow thinking that covid will be over sooner so you can go back out into public. There simply is no evidence in the US or anywhere else in the world that strategy has worked or can work.

              Florida might have a record tourism year this winter. For all kinds of reasons, I hope they do… and Hawaii and Arizona and I hope airlines – all of them – carry far more passengers there than they ever have.
              When Europe sees that the US is not all in the grave, Europe might open its borders too.

              thanks for the discussion.

    2. DesertGhost,

      So true.

      Sorry that your friend lost his mother, cant imagine what he’s dealing with considering the pandemic is enough to deal with presently.

  10. I find it disturbing that some of the commentators above appear to be reducing the tone of this blog by making personal attacks on others. That this blog is so free of demeaning commentary is one of the main reasons why it is so popular and successful.

    By all means disagree and argue, but insults have no place here.

    Thank you

  11. Why have international flights when Americans are allowed in many countries?

    And regardless of your political beliefs, most countries believe trump’s dismissal of the virus is reckless so the citizens have to pay for it. If testing and tracking were implemented and supported I think the situation would not be as bad. So trump is largely to be blamed for international flying issues. Cry, whine, whatever but that is reality.

  12. Holy cow. I spend the day fasting and return to find open warfare in the comments. I’ve issued some warnings, and I’m now taking action. Some posts that were deemed to be personal attacks have been removed. In fact, I removed an entire thread because it was hard to separate the good points from the attacks.

    Everyone else has been warned. It is very clear that there are strong opinions here, and that’s fine. There are some opinions that I dislike and some I even find detestable. When that happens… I ignore them. I would suggest others do the same instead of volleying attacks. That solves nothing. At the same time, there are some commenters who seem to draw out the anger in others. I would suggest that everyone think about the tone they use before they post a comment. There are often less incendiary ways to say things, and those will serve the same purpose but with better effectiveness.

    Don’t make me start policing these comments more. I really don’t want to do that, but I won’t tolerate personal attacks.

    1. Thank you, Brett. Sniping back and forth over something so out of your control than airline schedules? Yes, it’s an interesting pastime but some people need to chill out. Maybe consider become a trainspotter and slow life down a bit. I rarely read the comments on cf.com anymore because it’s always the same pedantic people that purport to know it all.

  13. The next episode will be heartbreaking for me. Southwest cancelled my DEN-CHS-DEN flights for Christmas.

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