TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin How safe to fly?

Just curious - has anyone heard of any cases of the virus being traced back to a flight? People have been back flying for a while now, and it would seem that if air travel were a huge spreader of the virus, something would have been reported. Logic would seem to indicate that air travel would be. But logic would also indicate that if it were, it would be reported? I'm just trying to convince myself and go ahead and buy my ticket for my planned January vacation.

My personal opinion, it has to be safer/cleaner to fly now than ever before. You know if there were cases from flying, the media would be all over it and embellish it to no end.

Exactly. Media would be all over this.

This article mentions a small number of known cases:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/odds-catching-covid-19-flight-wellness-scn/index.html

Dan

https://www.cnn.com/travel/amp/odds-catching-covid-19-flight-wellness-scn/index.html

Scientific odds are pretty slim Depending on where you sit 1 in 4300 to 1 in 7700.

Modern airplanes have medical grade filter systems so pretty unlikely then even if you get it getting ready sick is even less.

Go ahead and delete this if it's inappropriate, but with close to 200,000 deaths I really get annoyed (pulling punches) by people claiming some sort of media over-reaction to the virus. But to answer the question, it does appear that flying itself isn't unsafe. Now couple that with transit through airports, customs/immigration lines, and other vacation activities, you may be at higher risk. Full disclosure, we have a trip for November, and I'm hoping to go, but planning on not going, because of immigration restrictions or flight schedules. My plan is to just be more cautious than normal, and, bring an N95 mask as well as the regular one, which protects people around me. Yeah, wishy washy answer.

There was an article on CNN about the risk of flying, I believe DanS and foreversxm posted the link. It is very informative. Some airlines post information on flights that were impacted by covid, but they seem to be Canadian based airlines such as WestJet. WestJet has posted a spreadsheet on their website of flights impacted in order to be transparent and ask passengers on the affected flights to monitor their health for 14 days after the flight. It would be interesting if someone from an American based airline chimes in regarding covid exposure and flying.

I believe the odds of contracting covid on an airplane are slim based on what I have personally experienced due to number of passengers flying, cleaning protocols and safety measures of the airlines, but in reality we need to determine our individual comfort level and risk prior to taking the leap. FWIW I have flown on 8 flights since March 16 - to and from SXM, Canada and the US. I plan on returning to SXM prior the the end of the year if I can obtain the necessary test prior to departing.

I just booked a flight to St. Thomas on Delta. They have every middle seat blocked off on the 757's and A-321's so a couple has their own row. For the E190s for the short BOS-JFK part (2x2 config) they block off the 2nd seat (B) in EVERY row making it a 1x2 config.

I agree the issue is with the contacts before getting on the flight but masks are mandatory....kinda the same as going to Costco