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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have advised against travel this holiday season. Nevertheless, some people are hopping on planes to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Companies are making efforts to encourage physical distancing, such as putting markers on the floor to demonstrate how to stay six feet apart, said Alison Sider, who reports on the airline industry for The Wall Street Journal.
“But I think one of the challenges is, you are going to have this human behavior, you’re going to have people clustering together,” she said. “It is an airport. You hear the announcement, and everyone jumps up to the gate.”
The Transportation Security Administration has also created new technology to support social distancing, including an option for self-scanning ID cards. At LAX, mobile ordering also allows for touchless food purchases.
The smaller Long Beach Airport is touting the safety of outdoor waiting and boarding areas.
According to the TSA, airline travel is less than half what it was a year ago, though more than two million people boarded planes in the U.S. on Friday and Saturday.