That’s the Spirit!


I’ve been worried about safety of air travel since the beginning of the pandemic, and I’ve never been reassured by the CDC’s statements that no Covid cases have been definitively traced to air travel. I’m sure that’s true, but that definitely has much more to do with the lack of good tracing than with the safety of air travel. 

Two news stories in September and October confirmed my suspicions:

·        At least 11,000 people have been exposed to the coronavirus while on planes, and six city health departments said they documented a total of 500 cases that were attributed to air travel, just in the space of a few weeks.

·        Over 100 air marshals have come down with Covid-19.

But what really got my attention was this story on October 31, about how a woman had died of Covid-19 on a Spirit Airlines flight in July, yet her fellow passengers were never even notified about this. Of course, the airline said they did what they were required to do: report the death to the CDC (the fact that she had died of Covid wasn’t confirmed until a couple days after the flight).

Of course, Spirit has an ironclad reason for not notifying the passengers: The airline “said it was never asked by health authorities to share passenger manifests to aid in tracking down people who might have been exposed.” The CDC didn’t do anything about Spirit’s report. And state authorities in New Mexico, where the flight was diverted on its trip from Las Vegas to Dallas, admitted that they didn’t contact the other passengers either – since they never even asked for the manifests.

That’s all well and good. But maybe Spirit could have taken it on themselves to notify the passengers. They certainly had all of their contact information. Would it have been so hard to call each one of them, and at the least leave a message on their voicemail to call back because of an urgent concern?

I guess it would have. As you may know, Spirit is a discount carrier, where you get bare bones treatment (not even water). I’ve flown them, and since I knew what I was getting into beforehand, I was prepared and had a good experience. But if you’re thinking of flying on them, you need to ask: Is the money I might save on my ticket worth the fact that they obviously don’t care much about their passengers, once they’ve finished their flight? After all, they all paid in advance, and I’m sure the Conditions of Carriage don’t require notification when someone dies of Covid on a plane – so they can’t be sued. Spirit will come out of this just fine!

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.

 

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