How Safe Is Flying in the Age of Coronavirus?: QuickTake
Workers disinfect a plane before flights resumed in Bogota, Colombia.
Photographer: Ivan Valencia/BloombergHow safe is it to fly? This remains a troubling question. The hopes of airlines for a rebound in travel after an initial collapse ran up against a resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 around the world starting in late 2020. Overall, the demand for flights fell in 2020 by a record 66%, as measured by the number of kilometers traveled by paying passengers, according to the International Air Transport Association. Quarantines and travel restrictions account for much of the slide, but in addition, would-be passengers continue to worry about being stuck in a cabin for an extended time with possibly infectious strangers. The evidence shows the risks aren’t negligible.
It’s impossible to know. IATA, the trade group for the world’s airlines, counted 44 confirmed or suspected instances of in-flight transmission in the first nine months of 2020. With 1.2 billion passengers traveling in that period, the group said the risk appeared to be “very low.” However, its count was not comprehensive, and independent researchers caution that any tally of known cases is likely to reflect the difficulty establishing the spread of a virus on a plane.