RDU’s busiest airline hopes masks, fogging machines will help lure back passengers
While questions remain about how to enforce a statewide order that people wear masks in public, Delta and other airlines at Raleigh-Durham International Airport have a simple approach: They won’t let you on their planes without one.
Airlines have made numerous changes in how they handle their passengers and clean their planes and waiting areas in hopes of making people feel safe and comfortable flying again. Delta, the Triangle’s busiest airline before the COVID-19 pandemic, cut its schedule from more than 80 daily departures from RDU this winter to just six after demand for air travel plummeted.
Delta is trying to lure customers back by highlighting steps it has taken to reduce the risk someone will contract coronavirus while flying. This week, the company demonstrated its new rules and procedures for corporate executives and travel managers and on Friday did the same for local journalists.
One of the key changes is the requirement that passengers don a mask before boarding the plane, said John Azzaro, Delta’s general manager at RDU. If you don’t have a mask, Delta will give you one, sealed with two Purell wipes and a thank you card.
“We know masks are the single most important thing that the flying public can do to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus,” Azzaro said. “We do require all Delta customers to wear a mask upon boarding and through their entire travel on the aircraft.”
Other airlines with the same requirement include American, United, Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier and Spirit. Allegiant Airlines says it will begin requiring masks July 2.
If someone refuses to wear a mask before boarding, he or she will be asked to step aside while the rest of the passengers get on the plane, Azzaro said. A person may be allowed to board if there’s a medical reason for not wearing a mask, but those who simply refuse risk being placed on a “do-not-fly” list and barred from future Delta flights.
“We need customers to be respectful to our employees, to themselves and the other customers,” Azzaro said. “And not wearing a mask we consider is not respectful.”
Delta flight attendant Erin Eby of Atlanta said she’s had to remind some passengers to put their masks back on but says she hasn’t had anyone fuss about it yet.
“It’s been an adjustment for all of us, because it can be very hot, and it’s not something that we’re used to as Americans,” Eby said after coming off a flight Friday. “But at the same time I think it’s made people feel much more comfortable traveling.”
Gov. Roy Cooper has ordered North Carolinians to wear masks in public starting at 5 p.m. Friday. That includes inside the terminals at RDU, though airport president Michael Landguth notes that the governor’s order says “no customer will be removed from or denied entry to public transportation for failure to wear a face covering.”
RDU will publicize the governor’s mask order on digital signs and public address announcements and will give masks to anyone who needs one at guest services desks in both terminals, Landguth said.
“It’s just a good health and safety practice,” he said. “It allows us to get back to flying again.”
A slow return of passengers
The number of travelers flying in and out of RDU dropped more than 96% because of the coronavirus outbreak. Only 40,000 passengers came through the airport in all of April, equal to a single day’s business before the pandemic, Landguth said.
Traffic more than doubled in May and has continued to increase. There are now 43 departures a day on average to 23 nonstop destinations, down from 57 destinations before coronavirus. In July, airlines will add nonstops to St. Louis, Tampa, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Trenton, New Jersey, Landguth said.
Delta expects to nearly quadruple its daily departures from RDU to 25 in August, resuming nonstops to Boston, Salt Lake City, Orlando and Tampa and increasing the number of flights to Atlanta, Minneapolis, Detroit and New York.
The airline is filling its planes to no more than 60% of capacity to put some distance between passengers. Middle seats are left open unless people traveling together want one. Boarding begins with seats in back of the plane and is done in smaller groups to minimize crowding.
Between flights, the plane is cleaned and then treated with a hand-held electrostatic spraying machine that coats seats, tray tables, luggage bins and other surfaces with disinfectant.
Delta sales manager Doug Clifton said the new cleaning procedures have added about 20 minutes to the time a Boeing 737 stays on the ground between flights but says the company has no plans to abandon them in the future.
“This isn’t going away when the coronavirus dies,” Clifton said. “This is a new standard.”
Whether it’s enough to get people to fly again remains to be seen. Eby, who has been a Delta flight attendant for 30 years, said she thinks people have gotten used to easy air travel and will miss it.
“I think people want to see the world and experience the world,” she said. “I don’t think it’s enough to see it through a screen.”
For more information about flying through RDU during the coronavirus pandemic, including links to coronavirus websites for individual airlines, go to www.rdu.com/fly-confident-fly-rdu/.
