For those travelers still nervous about jumping on a flight, there’s reason to be nervous as airlines appear to be returning to pre-pandemic seating arrangements.
In a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study, it was found that simply leaving the middle seat vacant on planes could reduce COVID-19 exposure for passengers.
The report found that just giving passengers that extra room could reduce the risk of exposure by 23% to 57%, depending on the seating arrangement, even if passengers are not wearing masks.
Kansas State University conducted the study using the bacteriophage MS2 virus in place of the COVID-19 virus to study how the seating arrangements could impact passengers’ exposure.
The study found that the greatest reduction of exposure (57%) was found when looking at passengers without the middle three seats. While there was 35% to 39.4% reduction in exposure when the middle seat was removed.
According to The Hill, another model estimated a 23% reduction in exposure when scientists moved a passenger one seat away out of the middle seat directly next to an infected passenger.
“These data suggest that increasing physical distance between passengers and lowering passenger density could help reduce potential COVID-19 exposures during air travel,” the study reads. “Physical distancing of airplane passengers, including through policies such as middle seat vacancy, could provide additional reductions in SARS-CoV-2 exposure risk.”
The study did not include the measure of passengers with masks, as some of the data was collected in 2017.
Delta Air Lines is the last remaining U.S. airline that has maintained a ban on booking the middle seat, but beginning May 1, the ban will be lifted, and they will unblock middle seats.
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