Mid-flight chaos as passengers protest lack of social distancing
Airline passengers crammed into a packed plane’s cabin have been captured clashing with the crew over an apparent disregard for social distancing requirements amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Footage from inside Iberia Express flight IB3838 flying from Madrid to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria showed mask-wearing passengers on a near packed flight on May 11.
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One person on board filmed a fellow passenger engaging in a heated row with a crew member and shared the video to Twitter, complaining that no one was able to maintain any level of distance from one another.
The caption of the video, which went viral soon after being uploaded, loosely translated to: “Where is the safety distance Iberia? The plane is almost completely full and there is not even a separation seat between passengers. This is a shame.”
More than a thousand people replied, including others also on the flight who shared similar experiences of anger and frustration.
“I was there. Outrageous,” a passenger named Teresa Martin wrote, uploading a video of her own from her seat as tensions boiled over among passengers.
The airline later responded to the video tweet, claiming it had complied with regulations set by authorities, despite not allowing for distance to be kept between travellers.
Dónde está la distancia de seguridad @Iberia? Va el avión casi completamente lleno y no hay ni siquiera un asiento de separación entre pasajeros. Esto es una VERGÜENZA. @el_pais @eldiarioes @elmundoes pic.twitter.com/HnOJDluCkh
— Efrén Hernández (@efren_hr) May 10, 2020
“Hello, we are sorry to read your message. However, we want to assure you that we comply with all the security regulations set by the authorities,” its response read.
“We have reinforced the daily cleaning and disinfection of the cabin and all its elements.”
Many airlines have announced a move towards checkerboard seating and keeping middle seats free so passengers can maintain social distancing while in the air. However for the most part these guidelines are not enforceable by law, and airlines need only separate passengers where booking numbers allowed them to.
Australian airline Qantas came under fire last month after a passenger shared a photo of a full flight from north Queensland to Brisbane to Twitter.
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Qantas’ Chief executive Alan Joyce told ABC’s 7.30 Report on Monday that during the airline’s chartered repatriation flights, empty seats between passengers was not an option.
He hoped the Australian government would allow the airline to take the same approach to domestic flights, arguing a seat only put 60 centimetres distance between people, far less than 1.5 metres.
“Even if you take the middle seat as being empty, that's 60 centimetres. The social distancing rules are supposed to be 1.5 metres,” Mr Joyce told the program.
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The Qantas chief said leaving seat empty would cause prices to spike.
“If you did that, you'd have very few people on an aircraft and the airfares would have to be very high,” he cautioned.
Mr Joyce claimed air filtration and vigorous cleaning practices were sufficient in keeping airline passengers safe, citing a lack of known COVID-19 cases being transmitted between people while flying.
“We have the protections of how we clean aircraft, and if we put other protections in place, we think we can make a case [to forgo social distancing rules] and to make that absolutely secure and give people confidence that it's very safe to travel,” he said.
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