{"id":26224,"date":"2020-03-23T12:21:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T16:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=26224"},"modified":"2020-03-23T12:29:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T16:29:50","slug":"coronavirus-will-breathe-life-into-my-two-thirds-full-airline-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/23\/coronavirus-will-breathe-life-into-my-two-thirds-full-airline-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus will breathe life into my two-thirds-full airline idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David St. Hubbins: &#8220;It&#8217;s such a fine line between stupid.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My <a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/23\/two-thirds-full-airline-idea\/\">idea for an airline that wouldn&#8217;t sell its middle seats<\/a> was greeted with derision back in December 2019. Apparently it was on the &#8220;stupid&#8221; side of the fine line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If people won&#8217;t support the idea in the name of comfort, speed of boarding\/unloading, and overall efficiency, maybe fear of death will make the proposal look better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A coach seat with a guaranteed empty middle seat provides even more separation from a potentially disease-ridden fellow passenger than a first class seat, right? How is that not worth 50 percent more in the coronavirus age? Set a minimum pitch comparable to JetBlue&#8217;s Extra Room seats and everyone can travel again for a reasonable price, with reasonable protection from contagion, a lot faster (total time, including boarding), and with a lot less stress from Fall of Saigon-style lines at the gate. (Throw in a free N95 mask for each passenger as soon as the supply chain returns to normal.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David St. Hubbins: &#8220;It&#8217;s such a fine line between stupid.&#8221; My idea for an airline that wouldn&#8217;t sell its middle seats was greeted with derision back in December [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-travel-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Coronavirus will breathe life into my two-thirds-full airline idea? 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