President Trump today made his most impactful statement so far to reassure travelers shaken by the coronavirus outbreak, saying 'It's safe to fly.'
"Where these people are flying, it's safe to fly and (in) large portions of the world it's very safe to fly," Trump said. "Yes, it's safe."
Trump spoke Wednesday after he and Vice President Pence met with several key airline executives as well as Airlines For America, aviation's key lobby group, at The White House. They discussed measures the airlines are taking to combat the virus to keep planes safe and disinfected.
The airlines have been hit especially hard since the outbreak began in China earlier this year. Some experts have said that if the outbreak continues at its current pace, the airlines are looking at a loss of $30 billion.
Top officials from the biggest U.S. carriers were in attendance to discuss the virus.
"I think all of us have made a lot of changes to our cleaning procedures, changes to our onboard procedures, to gloves, sanitation, the service that our flight attendants are providing our customers ... We're trying to do everything we can to help everyone contain the virus and contain the spread of it," Bradley Tilden, CEO of Alaska Airlines, said in the meeting according to The Hill.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, United CEO Oscar Munoz and JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes were also in attendance.
"We've created the 'corona bump' at United where you'll see us all bumping each other," Munoz said. "It may sound silly but it's a fun way of expressing what we all need to know [which] is be careful for the next two weeks as we control this, that we adapt our behavior so that indeed we can continue to stay safe."
In addition to discussing cleaning procedures, Trump and Pence want airlines to deliver a mechanism for tracing passengers' travel so they can be tracked down if another passenger on the same flight tests positive for the coronavirus.
Nicholas Calio, CEO of Airlines For America, said he is working on a way for that to be less intrusive.
"We've contracted to having a mobile app and website developed that everyone would have to fill out that would go directly to CDC with that information," he said, noting that A4A would pay for the website. "We're moving forward with that. There's been good progress."
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