Flight Status: COVID-19 Spread Will Double By Filling Middle Seats, Says MIT Researcher

It's been over a month since India restarted air travel in the nation. And one thing people were most concerned about was the fact that the authorities weren¡¯t keeping the middle seat of the flight vacant, claiming that social distancing on scheduled flight status is already not possible.

However, this new MIT study is sure to make them rethink this decision on status of flight operations in India and around the world.

Getty Images

Flight status with planes having middle seats occupied in a COVID-19 world can prove to be riskier than actually flying in an aircraft, according to Arnold Barnett, a professor at MIT¡¯s Sloan School of Management, in a conversation with ZDNet.

In the study, that's yet to be peer-reviewed, he looked at publicly available statistics on social distancing and COVID-19 transmission and came to a conclusion that the odds of transmission of COVID-19 on a commercial flight with every middle seat occupied are doubled compared to a flight without middle seats occupied.

According to the statistical modelling, a passenger faces a one in 4,300 chance of being infected with COVID-19 while flying with every seat occupied. These numbers drastically drop to just 7,700 when flying on a plane with middle seats vacant.

Flight risk in COVID-19

The data further shows that three months of commercial flight status with middle seats occupied could result in 20 additional deaths due to COVID-19 or around 80 throughout the year.

This roughly translates to chances of death becoming one in 430,000 -- much likely than the risk of dying from a plane crash is one in 34 million, according to Barnett.

For people who claim that there is no social distancing possible on a plane, he explains, "The basic formula says that for every additional meter, the risk goes down by a factor of two. So in that sense, two meters is only half as risky as one meter and three meters is only half as risky as two.¡±

Reuters

He also spoke about the measures international airliners are adoption to making the journey safer for people including cleaning of aircraft with powerful disinfectants, cleansing air inside the aircraft, and the rule of face masks at all times for everyone onboard.

However, he emphasizes that keeping the middle seat empty in any full flight status will only make it safer, stating, ¡°I imagine the various things they're doing are a sincere attempt to make things safer, but that doesn't contradict the point that it would be safer still if you kept a middle seat open.¡±