There’s no escape from the virus in a cockpit at 30,000 feet

They must sit close to coworkers for hours on end. Social distancing from strangers—their customers—is nearly impossible. After work they head for nearly deserted hotels and scrounge for places to buy food.

Thousands of pilots and flight attendants risk exposing themselves to the deadly coronavirus on a daily basis. Well over 500 have fallen ill and a handful have died.

Unions are frustrated at the U.S. government’s unwillingness to mandate standards and what they say is a failure of the airlines and even some passengers to fully adhere to the recommendations of health authorities.

“Airline pilots are putting themselves in harm’s way each time we go to work,” said Joe DePete, president of the 63,000-member Air Line Pilots Association union.

At the same time, President Donald Trump is pushing to reopen the American economy—something that could entice people back to flying, increasing the risk for flight crews.

The pandemic has so far crushed demand for travel, cutting passenger loads to as little as 5% of last year. The numbers have recently rebounded, but only slightly, leaving airlines with billions of dollars in losses and facing an uncertain future.

Yet as airlines slash their schedules to save money, planes are fuller—occasionally even packed.

At a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday, industry representatives defended their actions, but acknowledged there might be a need for additional federal health requirements.

“It’s something that needs to be seriously considered,” Nicholas Calio, president of the Airlines for America trade group, representing large carriers, told lawmakers.

In interviews in recent weeks, more than a dozen pilots and flight attendants described a chaotic world of rolling cancellations, sometimes tense standoffs with passengers who don’t understand they’re putting others at risk and an eerie new reality of empty terminals and few flights.

Some employees, including those with health conditions that put them at enhanced risk of the coronavirus, say they’re terrified, caught between the cut in pay required to stay home under most airline contracts versus the unavoidable hazards of working. Everyone is waiting for what seem to be inevitable layoffs starting in October, when airlines that accepted federal payroll assistance can start cutting their work forces.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have worked together to create guidance for airlines on such things as mask use, aircraft cleaning and tracing employees who come in contact with infected coworkers. But the agencies have stopped short of mandating any of it.

The FAA said in a statement it didn’t have the legal authority to order such measures, but has stressed that carriers should comply with the guidelines.

While the CDC has airline-specific recommendations, its broader advice for Americans—including avoiding crowds and staying six feet (1.83 meters) from other people, even while wearing a mask—are impossible to follow on a crowded jetliner.

That prompted the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, representing employees at American, to demand the creation of an emergency task force to devise better ways to reduce risks.

Democratic Senators Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Tuesday introduced legislation that would set up such a task force led by major federal agencies along with airports, airlines and unions.

The plan has been endorsed by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and the Air Line Pilots Association, two of the largest unions in the industry.

Airlines for America said its members meet or exceed the CDC’s airline-specific guidance.

“U.S. airlines have been taking substantial, proactive steps to protect passengers and employees throughout this crisis,” the group said in a statement.

Gaps Remain

In spite of those actions, employees said gaps remain and there are confusing lapses in guidance.

“We have a several-front war going on,” said Dennis Tajer, a captain at American Airlines Group Inc. and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association.

One captain at a large U.S. carrier, who has heart disease and hadn’t flown since March, recently ticked off his concerns, which span nearly every routine step during a trip.

There’s the hotel room, not knowing how thoroughly it had been cleaned the night before. It’s difficult to socially distance in the vans in which crews spend considerable time going between airports and hotels. Even the prospect of getting a mid-flight coffee or food seemed fraught, he said.

ALPA on Wednesday released a report containing several dozen accounts from unidentified pilots. They included accusations that airlines hadn’t provided cleaning supplies, descriptions of unsafe conditions and reports of interactions with others who became sick.

On April 28, a pilot reported sharing a hotel van with 18 other people, including the driver. Pilots were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and most weren’t wearing masks.

“If one crew member had Covid-19, we all will get it on the 10 min. van ride to the airport,” the pilot wrote in the report. “I see this over and over. It’s not safe to come to work anymore.”

Airlines for America has been unable to verify the safety lapses reported by ALPA, Calio said Wednesday.

Then there is the cockpit.

On the most common single-aisle jets, captains and copilots sit three to four feet (1.22 meters) apart for hours on end, far closer than what is considered safe for social distancing. If occupied, extra seats in the rear of the cockpit, known as jumpseats, aren’t much further away.

Cleaning Jets

Switches and knobs can be cleaned between flights—at least one carrier is warning crews not scrub so hard that that they remove markings—but hand cleanings can’t get to every nook. Many carriers are using chemical sprays to disinfect cockpits and cabins, but those treatments don’t occur after every flight and wouldn’t protect against an infected colleague sitting nearby.

Wearing a mask during flights would help, the pilot with the heart condition said, but at least some other crew members at his airline seemed hostile to the idea, based on postings on a chat room for employees. He asked not to be named because his carrier forbids media interviews.

Like most airlines, his is urging employees to wear masks if they cannot stay more than six feet from coworkers, but there’s no requirement while working in the cockpit—where it’s impossible to stay far apart. The lack of specific guidance is maddening, he said.

“This is how our society is running,” he said. “We’ve declared some people essential and it’s making them expendable. We’re not doing enough to make them as safe as they can be.”

Testing Access

Pilots are still struggling to get more access to testing for the virus and more consistent notification when coworkers become sick, said Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association.

“We know we are exposed to more risks than the general public,” Weaks said.

In the passenger cabin, flight attendants have their own battles. Some passengers don’t seem to understand the need for distancing or don’t know how to wear masks properly, said three attendants.

Tensions flared recently when flight attendant Andrew Kothlow asked a woman who was walking toward the restroom at the rear of a plane to stop until he could move aside. She became confused and angry, he said.

“There’s always a passenger who doesn’t understand the reason for the rules,” said Kothlow, who asked that his airline not be identified. “They’re saying, ‘I’m not diseased.’ But I don’t know that.”

Passengers Actions

Other attendants, who asked not to be named because they’re prohibited from speaking to the media, reported similar concerns. One said he’s seen customers with masks covering only their mouths and others who left them dangling around their necks.

“I’m more bothered by the passengers’ actions and inactions than I am with anything else because their choices are affecting me and my coworkers,” one said.

A flight from Orlando to Miami in mid-April was completely full, mainly with farm workers returning to Mexico, said an attendant who worked the flight. None of them wore masks.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA union, posted a picture on Twitter April 26 showing people boarding a packed flight, some without masks.

For now, at least, the nation’s flight crews mostly still have jobs. Contracts at most carriers guarantee a minimum salary even if there isn’t enough work to go around. The bailout package signed into law March 27 requires airlines keep employees at least minimally employed through Sept. 30.

San Antonio

So they fly to San Antonio, waiting in a hotel room for three days for a piloting assignment that never materializes, as one pilot for a major airline recently experienced. Others sit at home, unable to fly because their qualifications have lapsed and training centers are shut for cleaning.

Cargo pilots used to flying business class to Europe to start a work trip now hitch rides on uncomfortable cockpit jumpseats, unable to maintain social distance.

And instead of congestion and delays, they must contend with the newly unnerving reality of near empty skies.

Several pilots reported that their radios often fell silent, which was unheard of previously on busy airways. Worried that his equipment had malfunctioned, one said he had recently radioed air traffic after a lengthy silence.

“Yeah, we’re still here,” a controller replied. “You’re the only one for 300 miles.”