You can fly from LaGuardia to O’Hare for $61. JFK to Rome will cost you only $290.
Cheap flights are everywhere, because nobody wants to fly anywhere. The planes might have the coronavirus. The airports certainly do. The stewardesses have been serving cranberry juice to folks from China, Seattle, and New York, so do you really want peanuts from them?
The airlines have reacted by waiving change fees and shifting their cancellation rules — some making the rules stricter to stanch the flow of refunds, others making them looser to alleviate travelers’ fears that wherever they want to fly in April will be under quarantine by then.
The empty seats have had a loud impact.
American Airlines, United, and Delta announced they were slashing the number of flights, dramatically cutting back on international trips and making 10% to 25% cuts to the number of domestic flights.
Congress is considering a bailout of the airlines, in terms of cash payments, tax breaks, or loan guarantees.
Some airlines are flying ghost flights into British airports. These are flights with zero passengers, flown to satisfy U.K. regulations requiring airlines to use their flight slots or lose them. So, while flying an empty jet might be a big waste of fuel, money, and a pilot’s time, airlines are still calculating it’s worth it. At least nobody’s getting the coronavirus on these flights.
Besides the ghost flights, there are the imaginary viruses. United Airlines Flight 1562, from Vail to Newark, had to divert to Denver because of a coronavirus panic. One passenger was coughing and sneezing, which displeased some others. According to local news, the objectors became “disruptive,” and the pilot landed in Denver. The sneezer, it turns out, had allergies. The crew made the germophobes get off, and then the sneezer and the calmer passengers continued on to Newark.
