or covering over both your nose and mouth

is required throughout our flight.

(light upbeat music)

- My name is Sebastian Modak,

and I'm one of many travel writers no longer traveling.

Like many, the thought of flying now makes me nervous.

But as a formerly frequent flyer, I'm also curious.

Many months into the COVID-19 pandemic,

I wondered what does the new normal of air travel

look like around the world?

How are different airlines, different airports,

and different countries responding to the pandemic?

To find out, I had to get on a flight.

And, stuck as I am in the United States

for the foreseeable future,

I also needed to call on some others for help.

- I can't believe how many shops are open.

- I'm feeling pretty good about the flight.

- [Sebastian] I decided to take a quick trip

from New York where I live to Chicago and back.

Eva Xaio was set to fly to Istanbul on a reporting trip.

And George Downs was making the trip home to London

after a work visit to Toulouse.

First, I wanted to get an idea

from someone who knows what they're talking about

of what I should and shouldn't do on a plane.

So I spoke to Dr. Celine Gounder,

infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist

at NYU and Bellevue Hospital.

- The risk on planes is really related

to the people who are closest to you on the plane.

The HVAC systems on planes are quite robust.

And so the air exchanges you get on planes

are actually quite good.

So it's the people sitting within a couple rows of you

that we really worry about.

And masks and potentially some sort of eye covering,

face shields, would be really important

for reducing that risk.

- Then I was ready to fly.

By car, by coach, by train, George, Eva and I

made our way to our respective airports.

And we were all struck by one thing.

I've never seen it this empty.

- It does feel quiet in here.

- [Eva] This station's usually not in this empty.

- I had decided to fly two different domestic airlines

to get an idea of what sets them apart.

American Airlines to Chicago,

Delta Airlines back to New York.

- [Pilot] Hey, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

- And even when I bought the tickets,

I knew there was gonna be a difference.

When I look at the seat maps on American Airlines,

everything's up for grabs, including the middle seat.

On Delta, however, they've blocked out the middle seat,

or at least it appears that way.

In George's case, his entire route was unusual,

a result of a drop in flight frequency

based on diminishing demand.

- I have to go to Charles de Gaulle in Paris

and then swap planes and go to London from there.

- [Sebastian] For Eva, things were mostly normal at home.

The situation in Turkey was more uncertain.

- Turkey's had over 1,000, 1,500 cases every day.

Whereas, Hong Kong I think had seven today.

- Because of our different routes,

we had different arrival regulations we had to follow.

In my case, the arrival protocols in Chicago and New York

more closely resembled recommendations than rules.

It's kind of interesting that I'm seeing the sign

telling me to quarantine as I'm leaving (laughing),

because I did not see it as I arrived in Chicago.

Meanwhile, George was ready

for two weeks of quarantine at home.

- When I travel from England to France,

that's a travel corridor.

So I was able to arrive here

and get about my day without having to quarantine.

However, the same, unfortunately for me,

doesn't work in the other direction.

So when I get back,

I'm going to have to quarantine for two weeks.

- [Sebastian] But even then, when he arrived in London,

he found that rules and processes had seemed to relax a bit.

- When I walked through, nobody took my temperature.

- [Sebastian] Eva, meanwhile, got tested before leaving

with a self testing kit she acquired from her doctor.

Upon arriving in Turkey,

she would have to present a health declaration form,

but there was no quarantine requirement.

She would have to quarantine at home though

when she returned to Hong Kong.

Perhaps the biggest change in flying

everywhere around the world,

regardless of airline or destination,

is the requirement to wear a mask.

It was a mixed bag though when it came to compliance.

- Mask standards are slipping.

- Everyone's wearing masks, of course.

- People are just coughing without their masks on

and things like that, so I'm a little nervous.

And in George's case, there were rules he had to follow

about the type of mask he was to wear.

- I'm just boarding the plane now,

but there were signs everywhere saying that I had to have

a disposable surgical mask specifically for this flight.

- [Sebastian] That's despite Dr. Gounder telling me

that cloth, surgical, or KN95 would all do the trick.

- Any of those that you showed us would be fine.

- [Sebastian] Eva brought back up

because of the length of her 12 hour flight.

- I've been told I should just wear it

for a maximum of six hours.

So actually I have another one.

I have to switch in the middle.

- [Sebastian] Before flying, I had heard from some people

that the boarding process had changed

from the cryptic zone system

to a far more logical and far more COVID safe

back to front process.

It turns out that was only the case with some airlines.

Eva who was flying Turkish Airlines had that experience.

- It looks like they're boarding from the back to the front.

- And I only had that experience on my way back,

when flying Delta.

On American Airlines, by contrast,

not only were middle seats not blocked out

and the plane packed,

but the boarding process was business as usual.

Delta said it will be blocking off middle seats

at least through January 6, 2021.

American confirmed it is not blocking middle seats,

nor has it changed its boarding process.

The airline did say it informs customers

when a flight is full and allows them to change

to a more open flight without fees.

George's flights were full.

And not only were middle seats not blocked off,

but he found himself in one.

In my case, it was one of many parts

of the process I found surprising,

mainly how different the experience was

between Delta and American,

two of the United States' big three airlines.

As a passenger, I've always thought

there has been very little light between the two.

Through their responses to the pandemic, that has changed.

On my first flight to Chicago,

besides the face masks, not a lot had changed.

This flight back to New York was a whole other story.

There was constant reminders that this was not normal.

The middle seats were blocked.

Nobody was sitting next to anyone else.

Amenities were altered across the board

no matter what plane we were on on.

On American, I received nothing but a single wet wipe.

Flight attendants only appeared to collect garbage.

On Delta, I got the wipe

plus a Ziploc bag of snacks and water.

Eva got a full boxed cold meal.

Her hygiene kit was quite a bit more impressive

than the single wipes both George and I were treated to.

When I arrived back in New York,

at a kiosk near a baggage claim,

I was asked to fill out paperwork

with my personal information.

In it, I agreed to quarantine for 14 days.

A week after my flight,

I hadn't been contacted by anyone to check that I was.

So what is flying like in 2020?

The short answer is it depends.

Safeguards vary widely from country to country,

and even within one country.

Most people are still choosing to postpone their trips.

In the week we traveled in mid-October, for example,

the number of scheduled flights was down 47%

compared to last year.

In the United States during that week,

the number of travelers going through TSA checkpoints

surpassed 1 million for the first time since March,

but that's still less than half as many as last year.

No transit authority, airport, or airline

has figured out a standard one size fits all model

to being 100% safe in these unprecedented times.

Passenger numbers reflect the uncertainty

many feel around air travel right now.

(light upbeat music)