Airborne

A paper, "It is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of Covid-19," to be published in the journal, Clinical Infectious Diseases, was leaked by the Washington Post yesterday. 200 scientists from all over the world are insistent that not enough attention has been paid to the airborne spread of the coronavirus even as there is growing evidence that the virus spreads indoors through aerosols that linger in the air and can be infectious even in smaller quantities than previously thought. "Until recently," wrote Post reporters James McCauley and Emily Rauhala, "most public health guidelines have focused on social distancing measures, regular hand-washing and precautions to avoid droplets. But the signatories to the paper say the potential of the virus to spread via airborne transmission has not been fully appreciated even by public health institutions such as the WHO." The big concern is that the virus spreads "through aerosols, or tiny respiratory droplets, that infected people cough or otherwise release into the air. In crowded or poorly ventilated indoor settings, this could be especially dangerous, and would account for a number of 'superspreading' incidents" (like churches or crowded bars or Trump rallies-- or anyplace where people aren't wearing masks).

“There is no reason for fear. It is not like the virus has changed. We think it has been transmitted this way all along,” said Jose Jimenez, a chemist at the University of Colorado who signed the paper. “Knowing about it helps target the measures to control the pandemic more accurately.”

Co-author Donald Milton, a professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland, said the WHO’s apparent reluctance to emphasize this aspect of the virus’s ability to spread is probably because of the difficulty identifying tiny infectious particles.

“It is easy to find virus on surfaces, on hands, in large drops,” he said in an emailed statement. “But, it is very hard to find much less culture virus from the air-- it is a major technical challenge and naive investigators routinely fail to find it...

“Because a person breathes 10,000 to 15,000 liters of air a day and it only takes one infectious dose in that volume of air, sampling 100 or even 1000 liters of air and not finding virus is meaningless.”

The folks who run United Airlines are hardly scientists or medical doctors, but yesterday they admitted that social distancing on planes is mostly bullshit (and "theater" designed to make people feel better but without any actual benefit). That fits in with United's-- and all the greed-driven airlines'-- plans to continue selling middle seats and stuffing in all the passengers they can. Josh Earnest, United's chief communications officer, told CNN that "keeping the seat next to you open is not going to make a material difference... It is very very difficult, if not impossible to socially distance onboard an aircraft. What is going to make a material difference is wearing a mask, and having a high-quality air filter, and thoroughly cleaning the plane before you get on board." So should airline companies be legally liable for people getting sick when airlines don't endorse mask rules? Should company executives who give the orders to ease up on masking rules spend the rest of their lives in prison? Yeah, I think so too.

One senior congressional Democrat told me that he's "not comfortable with airlines making these decisions on their own. Are we going to let them decide their own safety protocols, too? How about air traffic control? They have an obvious conflict of interest, and a strong motivation to lie. It’s part of a vast and overwhelming problem-- everyone is told just 'do your own thing,' subject only to lawsuits after the fact, when someone already is injured or killed. We’re the only country in the world that’s dealing with the pandemic this way."

Meanwhile the pandemic is disappearing in Europe and growing by leaps and bounds in the U.S. On Saturday, the U.S. reported 45,182 new cases. On Sunday it was 44,530 new cases. Monday, as the U.S. hurtled past 3 million cases, there were another 50,586 confirmed new cases. CNN reported early Monday that hospitals are nearing capacity levels, exactly what effective social distancing was supposed to avoid.

This week marks about two months since many states kicked off their reopening plans-- which now officials across the country say came too quickly.

In Florida, officials shut multiple beaches throughout the state hoping to avoid July 4 crowds. The state reported 9,999 new coronavirus cases Sunday, bringing Florida's total to more than 200,000 infections.

"There's no doubt... that when we reopened, people started socializing as if the virus didn't exist," Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told ABC This Week.

In Texas, which reported its second highest day of new cases over the weekend, a local leader said the state opened "too early, too much," driving Houston hospitals to surge capacity in recent days.

"Wishful thinking is neither good economic policy, nor good public health policy," Texas Judge Lina Hidalgo said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "If we had stayed shut down for longer and opened more slowly, we would probably be in a more sustainable place in our economy."

The announcement came days after the governor himself-- who pushed for one of the most aggressive reopening plans in the country-- shut bars back down.

"If I could go back and redo anything it probably would have been the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has told CNN affiliate KVIA.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego told ABC's This Week that her state "opened way too early," attributing much of the "explosion" in cases to people between the ages of 20 and 44.

These are the states reporting a rise in cases compared to the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins University data:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Cases are trekking steady in 14 states: Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming.

New cases are trending downward in Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

While Florida emerges as the nation's top hotspot, a CNN investigation found health authorities often failed to perform contact tracing, which has long been considered a key tool in containing coronavirus outbreaks.

CNN spoke with 27 Floridians-- or their family members-- who tested positive for the virus and only five said they received a call from health authorities asking for their contacts.

It's unclear how many contract tracers are employed by the state. A spokesperson for the state's health department told CNN there are 1,600 individuals "currently involved in contact tracing every positive case of COVID-19 in Florida" but another said there are 2,300 "individuals involved in contact tracing."

According to the Florida Department of Health, when someone tests positive for Covid-19, the department "conducts an extensive epidemiological investigation in conjunction with the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] to identify individuals who may have had close contact with the virus."

When CNN asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, how the nation is doing with contact tracing, he answered, "I don't think we're doing very well."

I asked Bob Lynch, one of the sharpest Florida candidates running for office what DeSantis and his and Trump's puppets in the legislature are doing wrong and what should be done to save lives in the Sunshine State. "The true tragedy of it all," he responded, "is that our dire health situation was entirely preventable if we had any semblance of competent leadership at the city, county, state, or national level. We closed the state too late and reopened it too early. The Florida GOP from DeSantis on down chose sychophancy over science with predictable results. Once I am elected I will help force Ron DeSantis to take the Medicaid expansion, giving 750 or so thousand Floridians coverage as we work towards Medicare for All. We need to establish true livable wages before the inevitable second wave of the virus hits. Floridians are being robbed of their own money by an Unemployment System (which they paid into) that was designed to fail. There is nowhere on the planet that failed so spectacularly at managing the virus than Miami-Dade County. The entire GOP leadership in this state needs to go. Our government should have been focusing all of their resources on how to safely reopen schools in the fall. Instead, they rushed to reopen bars and restaurants unsafely."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

The photo in the above meme indicates one of four possibilities to me:

1. This assclown is trying to assert what he sees as "My constitutional right provoke a fight on board a plane."

2. He only wore a mask so he could get past check-in.

3. He's heard some FOX "News" or Q-Anon conspiracy theory about retinal scans.

4. Like any Republican, he'd prefer not to see reality, especially the reality we are all living in right now in 2020.

Keep in mind that Mr. Assclown could have purchased a MAGA facemask, a real one. It took a long time, but the Trump campaign recently did start making "Make America Great Again" safety masks. Obviously, they are very poor sellers. I know I've never seen one in the wild. That's because the Dear Leader of the Trumpies has never been seen wearing one, so, of course neither has Pence or anyone else in the Kremlin White House. This Mr. Assclown probably figures "Hey, I've got the hat and some MAGA tattoos on various parts of my body so that's just more reason why I don't need a magamask."

Magamasks do come in a lot of variations. You can google them if you're so inclined. They even come in black and flag variations, American, not Confederate or Nazi, at least not yet. Give that time. Many of the magamasks, if not all of them, are probably made in China. Perhaps Ivanka got a swell patent approval deal from Xi Jinping to go along with the others he's given to her.

Personally, I would love to fit Trump supporters with very, very tight fitting black masks that say "I Can't Breathe." They'd definitely miss the irony of that. There is one mask you'd have no problem getting any Republican to wear, though. It's the one pictured right below. I bet you could buy one in the big August Republican soiree in Jacksonville. You just need the secret code word. It's "Apartheid."

Travel Is Going To Change So Much Because Of This Pandemic

I got some bullshit e-mail bordering on the criminal from American Airlines this morning. "Caring for you is our priority-- that's why we’re introducing new steps to give you even more peace of mind when you fly." They only have one priority: profit and they could care less if you die, as long as it isn't on one of their over-stuffed planes. Their message wants suckers willing to fly to know that they have "cleaning procedures on the ground and on board [and] "innovation opportunities for the future," but decidedly not than they plan to end social distancing onboard and stuff their passengers in like sardines agin, which will absolutely make people sick, some of whom will die.

"In a first for any airline," they boasted as though it were meaningful, "we’re seeking GBAC STARTM Accreditation from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council for all of our aircraft and lounges. This accreditation demonstrates we have the proper cleaning and disinfection practices, procedures and systems in place to respond to biological threats like COVID-19. Beginning June 30, we’ll ask all travelers during the check-in process to certify they have been free of COVID-19 symptoms for the past 14 days. This is in addition to requiring all travelers on board to wear a face covering." Certify? Pinky-swear?

Yesterday, writing for the Washington Post, Hannah Sampson reported that "After capping the number of people on flights since April, American Airlines announced Friday that its planes will likely be full in a few days." No wonder the E.U. has decided to ban Americans from coming back to Europe! That should hurt the airlines which-- let's face it-- deserve to be hurt.

American sent customers the bullshit above. But in their press release to the media, they admitted exactly what they're up to: "As more people continue to travel, customers may notice that flights are booked to capacity starting July 1. American will continue to notify customers and allow them to move to more open flights when available, all without incurring any cost." I was glad read that other customers were as angry as I was (even though I have no plans to fly until it's safe to-- which it is not at this point, unless you don't find getting sick.)

“I find it absolutely appalling you chose to sell the middle row seats as Covid numbers continue to spike,” one Twitter user wrote in a message directed to the airline. “I am loyal to AA but clearly you are not concerned with the safety of the public. Looks like I will fly delta since they removed the middle row. EXPECTED BETTER!”

Earlier this week, the union that represents American’s pilots pushed a plan that would have the government buy enough seats on each flights so no one would have to sit next to a stranger.

“Passengers would be encouraged to fly more thanks to uniform social distancing, airlines would be encouraged to operate more flights, and the government would ensure preservation of critical transportation infrastructure and related jobs,” the Allied Pilots Association proposed.

United said in mid-May that it would “avoid where possible seating customers next to each other” but could make no guarantees. Instead, the airline said at the time that it would “do our best” to contact travelers on flights that were expected to be close to full in case they wanted to rebook on another flight.

United spokesman Charles Hobart said in an email that the policy would stay in place through July 31, but he confirmed that the carrier does not block middle or adjacent seats.

Delta is still blocking middle seats and has committed to capping seating at 50 or 60 percent, depending on the part of the plane-- at least through Sept. 30. Southwest Airlines is blocking about a third of the seats on its planes from being booked, which it says allows for middle seats to stay open. That cap is also in place until at least Sept. 30.

JetBlue said it would continue blocking all middle seats on larger planes and aisle seats on smaller aircraft through at least July 31.

“You’re going to definitely have to sit next to a stranger again, I’m afraid, on a plane,” JetBlue chief executive Robin Hayes said during a Washington Post Live discussion in late May. “Because [of] the economics of our industry, most airlines have a break-even load factor of 75 to 80 percent, so clearly capping flights at 55 to 60 percent, which is what we’re doing right now … is not sustainable.”

Government mandates the percentage of restaurant seats that can be filled; why not airplanes? Last week, Sampson did another Post piece, 11 Ways The Pandemic Will Change Travel. Some of it doesn't sound so bad-- at least not to me:

Expect fewer crowds and experiences at tourist magnets

Theme parks, museums and iconic landmarks are known for drawing a crowd. But as they reopen and look to the future, those crowds are expected to be much smaller-- and more controlled.

In revealing plans to welcome visitors back this month and next, operators of some of the world’s largest theme parks painted a picture of what they expect a coronavirus-era “normal” to look like inside their gates. The scene: mandatory temperature checks; visitors and crew in masks; rides, lines and seats spaced to allow for social distancing; and characters that interact from afar, if at all.

“In preparing to reopen during this unusual time, we have to manage our theme parks in a very different way from what we’ve known before,” the Walt Disney Co. said in a statement announcing plans for a phased reopening of its Florida parks starting July 11.

At its Disney Springs shopping complex in central Florida, which started to reopen in May, Star Wars Stormtroopers keep watch from a balcony and issue warnings to visitors about wearing masks and staying distanced.

SeaWorld Orlando said it would modify some animal interactions, one of the park’s signature offerings. Universal Orlando Resort announced it would move to virtual lines for some attractions. Disney is doing away with fireworks shows and parades for now. And Six Flags said all parks would move to an online reservation system to manage how many people could attend and assign guests staggered arrival times.

Museums, too, are trying to envision a future where visitors will feel safe. The Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo in Washington, which drew more than 22 million visits last year, have not announced reopening dates, but plans call for only a few to open at first.

Capacity will be limited, and there may be more staff on hand to keep people appropriately distanced from each other. Face masks for everyone and cleaning throughout the day are also expected.

In Paris, the Louvre-- which has long struggled with overcrowding-- will require all visitors to book a time slot once the museum opens on July 6...

Airlines will have to balance safety and profits

Unlike many travel companies, airlines have continued to operate throughout the pandemic, although at drastically reduced numbers. Practices they have adopted over the past few months are likely to shape the future of flying, though some are certainly short-term fixes.

Blocking off some seats on planes or limiting the number of tickets sold, for example, is unlikely to be the status quo as more people start to fly. Such measures aren’t even guaranteed today across the board.

“You’re going to definitely have to sit next to a stranger again, I’m afraid, on a plane,” JetBlue chief executive Robin Hayes said during a Washington Post Live discussion last month. “Because [of] the economics of our industry, most airlines have a break-even load factor of 75 to 80 percent, so clearly capping flights at 55 to 60 percent, which is what we’re doing right now through July 6, is not sustainable.”

He said he believes airlines will need to make it easier in the future for travelers to change their flights-- a decision that, before the pandemic, came with hefty fees at most carriers.

“Because it’s not ever really going to be acceptable, I don’t think, for someone who is unwell to feel that they’re being made to fly,” he said.

Airlines are already requiring passengers and employees to wear masks, cutting food and beverage service during flights, and increasing how often they clean. Some have started asking travelers to fill out health questionnaires and checking passengers’ temperatures, but there is a broader push to have federal authorities take over those checks.

...Airports are also making changes, and the pandemic could force an overhaul of the way passengers move through the facilities, said Ty Osbaugh, the aviation leader at architecture firm Gensler.

He said he would not be surprised to see significantly more biometric screening and touchless elements within the next six to eight months. He envisioned a system that could scan his face, direct him to a TSA lane and use biometrics to let him buy anything in the airport without taking his wallet out.

“If I could go from curb to gate without physically touching anything, it kind of solves some of the pandemic issues,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of people who would prefer to do that.”

Wary travelers will stay closer to home

Before Americans start hopping on long flights or jetting around the world, experts believe they will first start venturing out closer to home.

Travel insurance comparison site Squaremouth said that based on travel insurance policies purchased through its site between April 1 and May 10 for travel this summer, domestic trips account for 48 percent of planned summer travel, an increase from 15 percent last year. And booking site Travelocity noted that most hotel bookings are within 100 miles of where travelers live.

“Our research actually says that leisure travel is going to be among the first to come back,” said Roger Dow, the chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association, in a media call last month. “It’ll be drive and shorter flights regionally.”

To create consistency across travel companies in the United States, the association released a set of guidelines last month that called for revamping public spaces to allow for physical distancing, installing barriers, moving toward touchless technology and stepping up sanitation.

But travelers within the United States should not expect consistency in the near term when trying to visit other states. Some places, including Hawaii and Maine, are either requiring most visitors to quarantine for two weeks after arriving or to show proof of a negative covid-19 test. And local rules about what can and can’t be open, and how many people can gather, could vary from city to city.

“Part of re-opening and recovery means that destinations, attractions, hotels, airlines, etc. will need to demonstrate to potential visitors that they are doing everything they can to minimize the risk as they travel to and once they are in the destination by following best practices,” Amir Eylon, the chief executive of tourism-focused consultancy Longwoods International, said in an email. “They will also need to demonstrate to the local residents, who may be wary, that they are asking visitors to ‘play by the rules.’”

Fewer travelers could mean more expensive travel abroad

While it can feel like airlines charge passengers for everything from choosing a seat to checking a bag, in reality, deregulation lowered the cost per mile for flying, making international travel more accessible than ever before.

But some worry that the impact of the pandemic on airlines may translate to less travelers flying abroad, and, as a result, will make other parts of international travel more expensive.

“If the airlines can only put half as many people on the plane, it’s going to cost a whole double,” says Rick Steves, the Washington-state-based European travel expert known for his guidebook series, public television and radio shows, and travel company that takes more than 30,000 people to Europe in a typical year. “I can afford it, but many travelers cannot. Then travel becomes an activity just for wealthy people.”

The issue is not only limited to airlines. Steves fears that by not being able to “pack the house,” establishments that make travel special such as mom-and-pop restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues will have to raise their prices to make up for the limited headcount.

Many cities around the world depend on international tourism and have felt the hit during the pandemic. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the decline in international tourism for the rest of 2020 could translate to $910 billion to $1.2 trillion in lost revenue for the industry.

...The not-so-socially distant elements of international travel that we love so much seem impossible to fully embrace while covid-19 remains without a vaccine. Will we get over virus fears and return to travel joys, such as eating street food in Bangkok, dancing in crowded Tel Aviv nightclubs or staying in a South African hostel with bunk beds?

Steves is confident those beloved aspects of going abroad will make a return after the pandemic subsides.

“You go to an Irish pub to sit next to a stranger and drink beer. You go to France to have your cheeks kissed,” he said. “I think that’s going to come back, but it’s gonna be a while.”

Buffets out, temperature checks in when ships return to sea

Two big questions have been swirling around the cruise industry since operators halted sailings in mid-March: When will ships take passengers back to sea? And what will cruising look like in the future?

While the world’s largest companies have not shared comprehensive details yet on what cruisers should expect, some things are clear: Cruise ships will not return to the sea all at once. When they do, they probably will not be as packed as they were in pre-coronavirus days. Temperature screenings, while incapable of catching asymptomatic travelers, will probably become the norm. The old-fashioned, dish-it-yourself buffet is expected to become a relic. Construction of new ships will almost certainly be delayed, and itineraries could be tweaked for a while.

...The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said cruise line plans must include temperature checks, medical screenings, testing for the coronavirus and social distancing protocols.

...Still unclear: How many people will be eager to set sail again, given the global toll of the virus and the high-profile outbreaks on ships. But cruise executives say they are optimistic based on bookings for 2021.

“I think in the early going, we have plenty of people who love cruising who will be able to fill the ships that will be available at the time,” Carnival Corp. chief executive Arnold Donald said in April.

Relocation will increase demand for home rentals

During the pandemic, many companies and their workforces learned productivity was possible outside of the office. Now that working remotely has entered the mainstream, we may see a new trend of people taking longer trips that combine work and pleasure.

"A lot of people have gotten comfortable that they don’t have to squeeze a nine-day vacation into six. They can take the extra days and maybe work a couple half-days remotely,” said vacation-rental company Vrbo president Jeff Hurst. "I do think we’re going to start to see people be more creative on how they think about working from any house, as opposed to just their own house, or any destination as opposed [to] from just their office.”

It’s a trend Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky believes was already in motion.

“I had assumed over the course of 20 years that a generation of people would not be tethered to their city ... that people will realize over the course of working more remote, they could kind of live anywhere,” Chesky said. “I never thought that decades would happen in two months.”

In April, Airbnb added a new feature on its homepage advertising “monthly stays” to accommodate the growing interest of long-term travel. At the peak of the pandemic shutdowns, about 40 percent of Airbnb’s bookings were long-term.

That number has dropped since; however, Chesky predicts travelers’ interest in long-term stays will continue to grow with time. “I couldn’t overstate this enough; I think this is a very big, profound shift," he said.

The long-term travel trend will be more beneficial for home rentals than hotels, as they offer travelers a more comfortable stay at a more affordable price. An Airbnb with a kitchen and a garage is more approachable for day-to-day living than a 400-room hotel where a traveler is bound to room service and outside restaurants.

Another major change in the vacation rental market since the pandemic began has been an overhaul of cleaning protocols. Once upon a time, the cleanliness star rating on an Airbnb review was just another detail travelers checked before booking a vacation rental. Then coronavirus redefined the importance of cleanliness.

Companies such as Airbnb and Vrbo created new cleaning procedures for hosts to follow in the pandemic. These enhanced sanitation steps were designed to not only keep travelers safe, but also to reassure them that it’s okay to travel again. And unlike emergency cancellation policies put into place during the pandemic, some experts believe this new emphasis on sanitation will extend into the future.

“COVID-19 has heightened consumer awareness around cleanliness, which is why we released our cleanliness guidelines to educate vacation homeowners, property managers and travelers about how vacation rentals should be cleaned and disinfected,” Hurst said. “As long as travelers are finding the information provided by our partners helpful, there’s no reason for it to go away.”

Interest in private travel is here to stay

The pandemic has created a greater demand for experiences away from crowds. Until a coronavirus vaccine is found, that preference for private travel will probably continue.

According to a U.S. Travel Association survey conducted in May, people feel more comfortable traveling in personal vehicles and staying in vacation rentals than they do taking flights, taking cruises and staying in hotels. Interest in RVs has skyrocketed.

Dow, of the U.S. Travel Association, predicts the pandemic will renew interest in the Great American Road Trip, with a particular focus on the outdoors, where travelers are less likely to face crowds.

“I think you’re going to see that Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota, the more rural places, get a huge spike in travel,” Dow said.

Small restaurants and bars may be decimated for good

...Many independently owned restaurants and bars, hallmarks of having a local experience while traveling, will not be able to restart at all. Investment bank UBS predicted in April that up to one in five restaurants in the United States may close permanently.

These small businesses are fighting herculean battles to stay in business during the pandemic. When owners aren’t scrambling to keep up with new government requirements or pivoting business models (like turning into grocery stores or coming up with new takeout concepts), they’re figuring out how to pay employees and mounting bills.

“I think the really fine dining restaurants will remain as is, the sort of middle ground of restaurants will shrink, and the fast-casual places like Shake Shack will stay afloat,” said Kat Odell, a food and travel writer and author who eats at about 400 to 500 restaurants per year.

...How tourism rebounds will also play a role in restaurants’ recovery, particularly in cities such as New York and Los Angeles that rely on patronage from travelers as well as locals. Will the independent restaurant landscape remain vibrant, or become dominated by the chains that could afford to weather this storm?...

Cleaning and contact-free technology will be top priorities

Hotels are elevating a couple of key amenities these days: cleanliness and health-consciousness. That means the things that might have mattered before-- restaurants, pools, gyms, bars, make-your-own-waffle stations-- are taking a back seat.

At the same time, experts say hotels have a difficult balancing act to pull off: While prioritizing health and safety, they still need to make visitors feel comfortable and at home.

“The challenge will be how do we make sure we’re not conveying reminders of the virus,” said Kate Walsh, the dean of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration.”We want to convey that this is a sanitized and healthy place, but we don’t want it to feel so clinical like you’re entering a hospital.”

Guests should expect to see more frequent cleaning, transparent shields, abundant hand sanitizers, reminders about distancing and lobbies reconfigured to create more space. They should also expect to interact with fewer workers as hotels encourage people to check in online and use their phones as room keys.

“The use of technology to reduce direct contact with guests, lobby population and front desk queue is encouraged, where feasible,” guidelines from the American Hotel & Lodging Association state. “In addition, contactless payment processes are encouraged, and when not available, employees should minimize contact as much as possible.”

The association also recommends that housekeepers should not enter rooms during a stay unless they are asked to do so or get approval from guests. All that separation could make it difficult for hotels to deliver the welcoming atmosphere they promise.

“We’re distancing the staff from the guest, and the heart of hospitality is conveying warmth and being taken care of,” Walsh said. “How do you do that in a distanced way?”

She said she expects to see hotels adapt to the times by using outdoor space more creatively, removing loose items such as menus, minibar goods and pens from rooms, and either making workout equipment available in guest rooms or letting guests reserve private gym time. Room service will be of the knock-and-drop variety, while restaurants-- which will need to abide by local and state capacity guidelines-- are expected to offer more grab-and-go options.

Frank Lavey, the senior vice president of global operations for Hyatt, said in an email that the company is listening to guests and loyalty members to get a sense of what matters most to them when they return.

“Health and safety is a top priority, but there is also the need for connection, culture and new experiences,” he said. “As the world begins to reopen, we are readying ourselves to help people do what they’re longing to do-- get back on the road to explore new places, feel the excitement of reconnecting with those they miss, destress and re-energize-- once again experience the joy of travel, and do so safely.”

Programs will introduce new, temporary perks

When the pandemic struck, frequent travelers wondered what would happen to their loyalty program standings. The complicated system of miles, rewards programs, points and statuses relies on people traveling and spending money using travel credit cards. But with most people not traveling, does the system crumble?

According to loyalty program experts, that answer is no.

“Loyalty programs are huge cost centers for airlines and hotels,” said Brian Kelly, the founder and chief executive of the Points Guy, a site that offers advice on those types of perks.

Airlines and hotels generate billions of dollars in revenue from selling miles and points to credit card companies. Some worry that because the status of travel is in limbo, travel perks won’t be as powerful of an incentive for consumers to join and use branded travel credit cards. But that shouldn’t be a major issue.

“They’re trying to figure out ways to still get people to care about the miles, especially if they’re not flying,” said René de Lambert, founder of the travel blog, RenesPoints.

Kelly and Lambert say travel brands are sustaining consumer interest by offering new incentives, like having everyday spending count toward lifetime elite statuses, allowing travel loyalty points be redeemed for non-travel purchases and increasing the number of award seats on flights.

According to American Express data reported by Wirecutter, 134 percent more American Express Membership Rewards were redeemed for non-travel purposes from mid-March to mid-April compared to that time frame in 2019.

These changes may not hold over after the pandemic, Kelly said, so they are going to benefit people who make the most of them in the near future.

“You better believe there will be people buying cheap flights to get a status that they never would have been able to achieve otherwise,” he said. “There will be people making out like bandits.”

Large gatherings will creep back with caution-- if at all

Traveling for the express purpose of interacting with other people-- dozens, hundreds or even thousands-- is especially fraught now. It’s still not clear what conferences, trade shows, political and fan conventions, concerts and festivals will look like in the coming months and years, if they happen at all.

High-profile events such as SXSW, the Cannes Film Festival and the 2020 Summer Olympics have all been canceled or postponed. Most Republican National Convention festivities were moved from Charlotte to Jacksonville, Fla., after North Carolina officials called for a downsized event with safety precautions. The Democratic National Convention appears to be moving toward a scaled-back or virtual event.

Julius Solaris, the editor of EventMB, which focuses on business meetings and events, said the first of such gatherings will probably be geared toward local audiences in large cities, rather than events that draw national and international crowds.

Those early meetings, he said, should be shorter-- a single day rather than several, with sessions that last no longer than 30 minutes. Solaris said attendance will need to be slashed so there’s enough room to keep people distanced in meeting rooms. All of those conditions could make traditional events too costly to put on at all.

“It’s just not going to be profitable for some events,” he said. “They’re not going to break even.”

Solaris said he anticipates seeing some hybrids, which may include some people together in person while others participate virtually.

Festivals and outdoor events still face huge challenges as many states have limits on how many people can gather, as well as rules about social distancing. Events such as city art festivals, parades and community runs would be too difficult or pointless to operate under such rules.

“We aren’t a model that you can change up,” said Steve Schmader, the president and chief executive of the International Festivals & Events Association. “The model of getting people together in your community is the model.”

He wondered how it would be possible to do temperature checks along a parade route, or make sure that everyone watching stayed six feet apart.

“We don’t have the answers to that,” Schmader said. “We’re all going through a master’s class we didn’t ask to sign up for.”

DWT Reports: On The Road With Exile Johnny!

COVID-Ron with COVID-Don... and friends

On Wednesday, right-wing loon Brandon Straka, a Trump campaign operative well-known enough to have been invited to appear on Fox in the past, was kicked off an American Airlines flight bound for Dallas before he took off from New York's LaGuardia Airport. He refused to wear a mask, endangering the other passengers. CNN reported that "This is the first known incident of this type since the airlines announced plans to more strictly enforce mask wearing... When asked about masks, Straka said he is anti-mask for himself, but he sees it as a personal decision. Along with T-shirts and other items, Straka sells masks on his website. 

Of course, there's an alternative to flying when you want to go someplace like... Florida. I might add, though, that on Wednesday, Florida reported 2,610 new COVID-19 cases, Third only to California and Texas, which reported, respectively, 4,179 and 3,511 new cases. On Thursday, Florida reported 3,207 new cases and 4,001 cases per million people. Today, Florida reported another 3,822 cases-- a one day record for the state-- and their cases per million number is now 4,179. Certain Floridians are celebrating the state's reopening by throwing away their masks-- if they ever bothered to acquire them in the first place.

Headin' South. Call Them Irresponsible. It's Undeniably True.
-by Exile Johnny

It's one thing to hear how irresponsibly people are acting (and how fucking stupid they are), and another to see it close up...

My wife and I were scheduled for our annual drive down to our little town house in Florida, and stay there for a couple of weeks, or so, around Easter time. With Covid-19, travel restrictions, etc, obviously, that trip got cancelled. The cancellation of the the planned trip meant that there were a couple of loose ends down there that we would need to take care of on our property before the summer months, and hurricane season, so we knew a brief trip was going to have to be squeezed in, at some point. My wife had been nudging me to go for many weeks now, but I resisted, pointing out that I felt more confident being in New York where, even though I knew the virus was bad, I knew we were behaving properly, as opposed to a state where the Governor seemed to have no interest in imposing any safety restrictions, beyond keeping us dreaded New Yorkers from entering the state.

Well, even though we had heard infection rates were getting worse down south, we still needed to make the trip, and it didn't seem as if it's going to be getting any better, so we hit the open road late last week. The plan was for a whirlwind 6 day trip, a day and a half to drive down (need to take a couple of breaks at our advanced age), 2 + days in the state of Florida (need to give my vehicle a little break, as well), and then another day and ahalf to 2 to drive back.

The trip was an eye opening experience as to what a failure it's been to have such a lack of leadership and a lack of a unified response, to this crisis both on a national level and in many individual states. I'll try to give you a brief rundown, so you might get the gist:

The first stop was at a great sandwich shop we know in Baltimore. People lined up inside, and a few out. People keeping their distance, everyone wearing a mask, everything done right, and in a timely manner. Great start. But, as we went further south, the situation went further south. We only stopped in Virginia for gas, but could see people there were much less vigilant.

Then, on to the Carolina's. Oh boy! The Carolina's, with very rare exception, were as if no word of any pandemic, or infection, had ever reached them. You would have to work really hard to locate someone with a mask. Thursday evening, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, not to eat, just for a bathroom break, as we figured it was a location whose corporate structure likely meant that it was at least clean, and followed some semblance of guidelines. No siree. Not a mask in the house. Not a customer. Not an employee. Plenty of people eating indoors in their dining room. Once again, it was as if nothing has transpired in recent months. As my wife came back to our car, she was laughed at in the parking lot for wearing a mask.

Next morning, the couple of brief gas/pit stops we made in Georgia were pretty similar. Then it was on to the Florida Border. Just a couple of miles across the state line on I-95, there was a checkpoint set up. Every car was stopped, and if you were cleared, they let you continue on the highway. If you were not, you had to proceed to the tented areas (set up in a weigh station). Having New York plates on our vehicle we were, of course, told to pull into said area. We were greeted by some very friendly workers from the state health department (And, yes, they were wearing masks). We were handed 2 sheets of paper. 1 was just a list of guidelines, basically saying that it is 'suggested' that you self quarantine for 14 days upon entering the state. The other was a form you had to sign, saying where you were going, reason for visit, how long you were staying, etc. As I mentioned, the ladies we dealt with were very nice, and very laid back, and pretty much made it clear that this was all just a bunch of B.S. that they were being forced to do by the governor. To be clear and open myself, though, I did share with them that it was my intent to only be in the state for a few days, and then get back on my merry way. They had given me the paper saying something about quarantining for 14 days. We were not required to stay 14 days, were we? I was told in pretty uncertain terms, that this encounter, where they gave me 2 pieces of paper, would be the last I would hear of anything about the matter. Once I signed one of those sheets of paper and gave it back to them, we were free to come and go as we please, and basically do whatever we want. So, as directed, on our merry way we go.

We have a regular spot in Daytona, right off I-95, where we like to stop for barbecue. It's a place where you go to the counter and order, and then they bring the food to you. Employees seem to be wearing masks, patrons are not. Except for us, all patrons choose to eat inside, even though it's a gorgeous day outside. We pay for our food and, sensibly, eat at the tables outdoors. After this, it's on to our final destination, which is Lake Worth, Florida (a mere stone's throw from the "fabled" Mar-a-Lago). Before even going to the house, we decided to stop at both the local fruit market, and a regular market, to get some supplies for the short trip, and to get something to prepare at home that evening; not taking any chances with takeout food, until we survey the area. Much to our surprise, Lake Worth seems to be doing the right thing. Face coverings are required by both employees, and customers, at indoor locations, making us feel slightly more comfortable. However, the story doesn't end there.

The next little twist is actually the crux of this story for me. As I mentioned, our little area was following the desired protocols correctly. Over the next couple of days in the area, we went to both a liquor store, and a Trader Joe's in Wellington (about 5-6 miles away). At the liquor store, they were actually spot checking temperatures of their cashiers, in addition to having them wear masks, but there were no restrictions on customers (I think we were the only ones who had them on). Then, at Trader Joe's, they were extremely vigilant; masks definitely required, only 40 people allowed in store at a time. Conversely, on Saturday night, we went to an ice cream shop in Lantana (about 5 miles in a different direction), which apparently seems to be an area with no restrictions (employees of the shop wearing masks, but no requirements for masks or social distancing on customers). The point of this last little part is, it's not even state by state, it's not even city by city. It doesn't even seem to be town by town. It seems as if every tiny jurisdiction has their own set of rules. How is one supposed to know where is 'safe' to go, and where to avoid? And how 'safe' are the 'safe' areas if people 5 miles away, who are certainly coming into these areas, are living by a totally different set of guidelines? And, bottom line, if we continue to go on this way, with no coherent strategy, and no consistency whatsoever, how is there any chance that things are ever going to get better?

I want to add one other little thing. Midday Saturday, I said that we should take a drive to the local beach, just to see what it's like over there. They were only using half the parking lot, and had half roped off. But, it didn't seem to have the desired effect. The beach itself seemed packed. Lot's of younger people seemed to be parking at a distance, and merely walking in, and the parking restrictions were just creating a clusterfuck of people waiting for parking. Later in the afternoon, at a time when people are generally leaving the beach, we took a ride to both Boynton Beach and Del Ray Beach. Both were totally packed, with lots and lots of people waiting or driving around hoping to park. We've been there in June before. Never seen beaches this packed. I'm sure it has a great deal to do with there not being a great deal of options of things for people to do.That being said, I think it's safe to say that people cramming all throughout the beaches is not gonna help matters much.

I could add more experiences about the return drive home. But it would be similar to what I've already said, except to add that We certainly got some 'What the fuck is this asshole/loser/pussy doing with a mask on' looks, as well.

Is Air Travel Back? Not For Me

I've only been to the Bahamas once; I didn't like it. The trip was to visit the legendary, now shuttered, Compass Point Studios in Nassau, where one of our bands, the Ocean Blue, was recording Beneath the Rhythm and Sound late in the summer of 1993. It was a difficult time for the band, who came from a very conservative religious fundamentalist background and had been coming to grips with the fact that one of its key members had decided to eschew the closet and embrace his homosexuality. He had written the band's only real hit and was the member most liked by the media. But the other band members-- who had once all given each other copies of the newly released Rush Limbaugh book as Christmas presents-- couldn't come to terms with one of them being gay. They told him he had to stop talking with the media and representing the band. And then they told him that Beneath the Rhythm and Sound would be the last time they would be working together, after having been friends since childhood.

I was unaware of that when I got to Nassau for the album playback. Afterwards the studio managers had a barbeque at the pool as a kind of celebration. Suddenly their 5 year old son was nowhere to be seen. Then he was seen-- at the bottom of the pool. Steve, the Ocean Blue member being thrown out of the band, had been a lifeguard. He dove in, rescued the kid and resuscitated him... tears of joy everywhere. One of the other band members came over to me. He seemed confused. "How," he asked me, seriously, referring to Steve, "could he be doing Satan's work and God's work at the same time?"

The was both the Ocean Blue's last album for Sire Records and my last visit to the Bahamas, forever tainted in my mind by the whole drama. And I'm not a big fan of beach resort places. There have been 103 COVID cases and 11 deaths, just 262 cases per million people, extremely low. The least impacted U.S. states have far more cases per million:

• Alaska- 904 per million
• Montana- 570 per million
• Hawaii- 514 per million

In fact, the Bahamas are doing so well that they're reopening for business July1. The government will allow commercial airlines, hotels and vacation rentals as well as taxis and buses. But... pre-travel requirements include:

• COVID-19 RT-PCR negative test result no older than 10 days, ready to be handed to Customs & Immigration officials upon arrival.
• Customs & Immigration forms that must be filled out and printed prior to arrival.
• A Travel Health Card that must be filled out prior to travel.

There are lots of safety requirements for tourists-- temperature screenings at places such as airports; beach chairs spaced 6 feet apart; and no more buffets at resorts. Incoming travelers are will be advised to adhere to social distancing guidelines and to routinely bring face masks just as they would bring their swimsuits and sunscreen."

According the USA Today, "Bahamians derive the bulk of their income from tourism. Fishing, diving and soaking up the sun reportedly generates $5.7 billion for the economy. In 2018, over 590,000 boaters visited the Bahamas. About 3.2 million tourists were from the U.S., contributing an estimated $1.3 billion to the economy.

The Prime Minister announced the opening will be reversed if cases spike: "It will be adjusted if we see a deterioration of the COVID-19 infection trends or if we’ve determined that the protocols and procedures are not in place sufficiently to warrant this opening."

Badge of Honor by Nancy Ohanian

The airlines were so desperate for customers that they refused to ban traveller who wouldn't wear masks, endangering the other passengers and the staff. This afternoon, the Washington Post reported this might change. "Airlines for America, a trade organization, said a group of major American airlines will begin 'vigorously' enforcing face-covering policies after reports of travelers not being held to the safety standard. Last month, several airlines acknowledged that they had told crew members to avoid escalating any confrontations in the air over mask violations and described various levels of enforcement. Delta, Southwest, United Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue and others will 'clearly articulate' their face-covering policy to passengers and may require customers to acknowledge the policy at check-in, the association announced Monday on behalf of the member companies. If passengers don’t comply, carriers can implement their own consequences, which could include suspension of flying privileges. 'U.S. airlines are very serious about requiring face coverings on their flights,' Nicholas E. Calio, the group’s president and chief executive, wrote in the statement. That's completely and demonstrably untrue and anyone who catches COVID on a plane would have to be crazy not to sue the airline. Also noteworthy: "The use of face masks at airports has been sporadic, according to reports from across the country."

Anyone thinking about boarding a plane for Tulsa this week to attend the COVID-spreading Trump rally there? I'd advise against it; just drink the bleach. Alan Grayson watches air travel carefully and has been telling me there are just 20% of flights taking off these days compared to last year. Last week he sent me this e-mail: "Down 81% yesterday from a year ago."

He started on March 22 but I couldn't figure out how to take a photo of his chart that was that long. The low point was on my sister's birthday, April 16: 95,085 flights vs. 2,616,158 flights the year before (approximately 3.6%). It's been slowly ticking up since.

Yesterday, Josh Barro, writing for New York Magazine, noted that Air Travel Is Rebounding Strongly-- But Likely To Remain Well Below Pre-COVID Levels. "Air travel," he wrote, "is coming back." Really? I don't recall a summer I haven't been abroad since... 1968. I'm a frequent flyer and I can't imagine getting on a plane, as much as I might want to be in Bali or the Dordogne region of France, where we were planning to spend June.

Barro wrote that last Thursday the TSA "screened 502,000 passengers, the first time travelers throughout have exceeded half a million since March 21. By ordinary measures, this is dismal volume-- on a typical spring day last year, between 2 million and 2.5 million passengers passed through TSA checkpoints-- but it’s way up from the depths of April, when there were several days with fewer than 100,000 travelers, volumes not typically seen since the 1950s.

Airlines have been responding to this trend by beefing up their schedules, especially for domestic travel. American Airlines announced earlier this month that its domestic schedule for July will offer 45 percent less capacity than last July’s-- for comparison, May’s domestic schedule entailed an 80 percent year-over-year reduction. Rising passenger volumes also mean airlines have been losing less money every day than they expected to lose as of April, one of the factors recently pushing up airline stock prices (though they are down Monday morning).

As with so much of the economy, a key question for the airline industry is how long this better-than-expected trend will continue. A fraction of customers are demonstrating their eagerness to resume travel as soon as it is feasible. Forty-four percent of respondents to an ABC–Ipsos poll conducted this week said they were willing to fly at this time-- up from 29 percent in May, but still seriously depressed. And travel volumes are not just a question of willingness, but also of interest. Certain activities that motivate air travel-- conventions, weddings, festivals, nightlife, sporting events, even business meetings-- are unlikely to return in force until there is a widely distributed vaccine or a highly effective therapeutic treatment. And while consumers have been surprisingly eager to spend in certain areas, consumers whose own jobs and businesses are slow to return to normal may be disinclined to spend on leisure travel. Businesses dealing with lost revenues have found cessation of business travel to be one important area of cost reduction and may themselves be slow to resume it.

For this reason, airlines have been signaling to their workers that some fraction of the current service reductions are likely to be persistent-- and will require a permanent shrinking of aircraft fleets and of staffing. CARES Act financial subsidies generally require airlines to maintain staffing levels through September 30, but airlines have been warning of potential layoffs after that and have been offering voluntary buyouts and early retirement packages to workers. One common feature of these offers has been letting workers retain free-flying benefits for extended periods after leaving their jobs-- a benefit that may be more valuable in upcoming years if planes have more unsold seats available for nonrevenue travel.

Airlines are doing their part to lure customers back. American says this will be the “summer of deals,” and there are a lot of low airfares out there. But I can’t stop thinking about something the economist Jason Furman pointed out to me last month about airfares in the time of the coronavirus and “hedonic adjustments.” Hedonic adjustment is the process of accounting for changes in product and service quality when calculating inflation. If the new iPhone has a better battery life than the old iPhone, then part of the phone-price increase should be attributed to improved quality, not inflation. So how should we think about the changing quality of air travel-- if there are no restaurants open in New York, no Broadway shows, nobody willing to take an in-person business meeting with you, doesn’t that all reduce the product quality of a plane ticket to New York? Add the increased difficulty of getting a decent cocktail at the airport and the risk of contracting a deadly disease, and it’s easy to see why it’s so hard to sell airline tickets right now. Just because something is cheap doesn’t mean it’s a deal. And some of those factors reducing the quality of air travel are likely to persist for a year or longer.

The CARES Act was designed to prevent the airlines from shrinking in an undesirable way-- from running out of money this spring or summer, laying off staff and shedding planes for which demand would return by this fall. And as we see, some of that demand is returning pretty robustly. But part of what we are seeing is a longer-run drop in demand that will require a materially smaller airline sector for a period of several years as the economy recovers. Over the rest of the year we will get a better sense of how large a part that is that won’t return soon.

Everything Is Not Back To Normal Yet, But If We Pull Together And All Work Hard... Maybe Sometime In 2021

Death Of A Salesman by Nancy Ohanian

Americans so desperately want everything to go back to pre-pandemic normal that they're going to make the pandemic much worse. It's not a TV show with a happy ending; this reality could get a lot worse. In fact, it already is. There are still around 20,000 new confirmed cases in the U.S. everyday. With early frontline states New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Michigan, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and Delaware starting to get the outbreak under control, focus has moved south and west and the new frontline states are California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, the Dakotas, Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa, Nebaska, Arkansas and Wisconsin.

A few days ago a piece at Axios by Felix Salmon caught my attention. Largely because of weak, confused anti-government Republican governance, Americans are abandoning whatever there was of mask wearing and social distancing. Salmon noted that we're "about to embark upon the most momentous social experiment in living memory: What happens when you take laissez-faire economic principles and apply them to public health?" The central tenet of capitalism is that when millions of people make their own individual risk/reward calculations, the result is superior to top-down decision-making by the government. But that isn't what epidemiologists are saying about the pandemic, not with America continuing to see tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases every day. And not with so few of them resulting in a comprehensive contact-tracing review. "Given the amount of virus in the population,"he wrote, "there's a non-negligible probability that any of us could be unknowingly infectious today. Americans react to this uncertainty in line with their own idiosyncratic risk appetite. Younger folks, in particular, tend to be happier making riskier decisions, as do people like undercover police officers. As businesses reopen, decisions about things like whether to step into a crowded elevator will be made on a bottom-up rather than a top-down basis. Some people will be willing; others won't. (Both sides will view the other group as outliers.) Governors can't simply decree that business is back to usual. So long as a significant proportion of society is unwilling to resume economic activity, employment and GDP will remain depressed. Countries with more forceful and effective government responses have been able to bring the rate of infection down to a level at which most citizens can reasonably feel safe from the disease. That's not going to happen here-- and it's not going to happen in places like Brazil, India, or Mexico, either."

The biggest daily spikes are no longer in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium or any of the European countries that were hit so hard right off the bat. These are the countries with the biggest one-day reports-- over a thousand-- Thursday (first number) and Friday (second number):

• Brazil +31,890... +30,136
• U.S. +22,268... +25,393
• India +9,889... +9,471
• Russia +8,831... +8,726
• Pakistan +4,801... +3,985
• Chile +4,664... +4,207
• Peru +4,284... +4,202
• Mexico +3,912... +4,442
• Iran +3,574... +2,886
• South Africa +3,267... +2,642
• Bangladesh +2,423... +2,828
• Saudi Arabia +1,975... +2,591
• U.K. +1,805... +1,650
• Colombia +1,766... +1,515
• Qatar +1,581... +1,754
• Egypt +1,152... +1,358
• Sweden +1,080... +1,056

Salmon noted that as bad as the global picture is-- and it is really bad outside of Western Europe and East Asia-- "the U.S. has failed to hammer down the rate of new infections, which remain around 20,000 per day even as most states begin to come out of lockdown. Some states, such as Arizona [plus Texas and Florida], are seeing new record highs, even as the National Institutes of Health warns that a warm and humid summer won't help dampen the spread of the disease.





I keep talking with people who want to end sheltering in place for themselves. Big mistake-- not just for themselves and their circles, but for society. There is a safe way to reopen and an unsafe way. Trump's excuse for "leadership" is guaranteeing that the U.S. is reopening in the least safe way possible. Look at the new cases in the original half dozen worst hit western European nations:

• Spain +318
• Italy +518
• Germany +491
• France +611
• Belgium +140
• Netherlands +210

Compare that to the half dozen Trump states that have most strenuously ignored social distancing and safe practices and safe reopening guidelines:

• Texas +2,080
• Florida +1,305
• Georgia +774
• Arizona +1,579
• Iowa +355
• South Carolina +448

Drew Jones wrote an interesting piece about airplane travel for the Washington Post yesterday. After having resumed flights just over a week ago, Lion Air just down again yesterday. The company said that did so because passengers refused to follow health protocols.

According to data from [Indonesia's] Central Statistics Agency, domestic flight volume was down 82 percent in April, with 838,100 passenger on flights, compared with 4.6 million in March. International travel numbers were worse, with a 95 percent drop in passengers leading to 26,000 fliers last month as opposed to 558,700 in the month of March.

Lion Air has promised to monitor the coronavirus outbreak to keep the company’s “flight operations under applicable provisions of safety and security aspects,” and to “continue to implement health protocols according to the provisions” that prevent the spread of covid-19, but for now there’s no date set for when air travel will resume.

This week, Business Traveller reported that American Airlines is resuming flights from Dallas to Dublin July 7 and from Charlotte, LAX, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Raleigh to London beginning August 5-- as well as flights from Charlotte to Munich, JFK to Paris and Madrid, Miami to Madrid Rio and Sao Paulo, Chicago to Athens, Barcelona and Dublin, and Philadelphia to Madrid and Zurich. There is already one daily flight from JFK to Heathrow operating. American is also restarting many domestic flights and reopening some of their Admirals Club lounges-- as well as offering double their virtually worthless AAdvantage miles for customers who are crazy enough to fly before September 30 (and book during June).

Turkish Airlines resumed domestic flights this week-- despite serious and ongoing COVID-spikes-- and will start flying to 40 counties this month. Although the pandemic is out of control in much of the Middle East, Emirati, Emirates and Etihad Airlines are all flying internationally again. New confirmed cases in the Middle East reported yesterday:

• Iran +2,886 (1,992 cases per million)
• Saudi Arabia +2,591 (2,753 cases per million)
• Qatar +1,754 (23,326 cases per million)
• Egypt +1,348 (304 cases per million)
• Turkey +930 (1,998 cases per million)
• Oman +770 (2,960 cases per million)
• Iraq +1,006 (245 cases per million)
• UAE +624 (3,809 cases per million)
• Kuwait +723 (7,183 cases per million)
• Bahrain +539 (8,155 cases per million)

Although Israel, which has been relatively strict about social distancing rules and has made some good progress in containing the pandemic, doesn't allow non-Israelis to enter the country, Air Canada, Delta, Lufthansa and Wizz (a neo-Nazi airline based in Budapest) have restarted flights to Tel-Aviv. (United never stopped flying there.) Israelis who fly into the country must self-quarantine for 2 weeks. Israel is considering allowing non-citizens to start flying into the country again June 15.