Vacillating between imbecility and sheer incompetence, the Trump Administration’s approach to coronavirus has been one-part fantasy, one-part folly, one-part paralysis, and one-part stupidity.
We do not have a national strategy to deal with Coronavirus.
Our reaction to the virus has been a patchwork of bailouts that have expired, knee jerk reactions and directives, hoping for the best, and scrambling efforts by government agencies giving at times contradictory guidance.
The lack of a national strategy and direction has left states, municipalities, and private industry leaders left to “figure it out for themselves.”
Few industries have been hit harder than commercial airline travel. A mixture of travel bans, fears, an implosion of personal income, and political rhetoric has decimated the industry in a way that many couldn’t have imagined possible.
Because we don’t have a national strategy, the commercial travel industry is attempting to act to save itself. The industry’s primary focus appears to be building confidence by using testing to say “everything’s ok – everyone on the plane is healthy.”
The logic is pretty simple – if we know who’s sick and we keep those who are sick from flying – well then air travel is safe and everyone can get flying again (pretty please). You won’t have to quarantine on the other side, so, get on that plane.
I am one of the first, if not the first, to have spoken out saying allowing an ad hoc approach to testing conducted by airports and airlines is a terrible idea.
I’ve noticed since saying that past April, none have backed me up. Instead, what we continue to note are airports instituting their own testing regimes, discussions about companies issuing “health passports,” and attempting to bolster confidence through testing. I continue to see airline CEOs and airports announcing this and that program designed to bolster confidence.
I don’t fault these efforts. Given the federal government’s paralysis and the certain doom facing the industry, I can understand a logic that says “we’re not going to just stand here like ducks and thunder and get obliterated.”
But put simply, it’s not the airline’s, the airport’s, or the state’s job to contain a national public health crisis.
It’s the federal government’s job.
It’s the federal government’s job because containing Coronavirus is a national public health priority. The testing of people results in challenges of civil rights and data privacy. The coordination and acceptance of these tests nationally and internationally requires the backing of the federal government to coordinate and negotiate these standards.
This can’t be accomplished by airports partnering with hospitals, cramming Q-tips up people’s noses, and going… TA DA!
It just doesn’t work that way.
I want to put aside all the challenges of the action of testing, with the key one being the tests are ridiculously inaccurate (giving both false positive and false negative results)
I’ll put this in simple terms – a COVID test done outside the medical treatment context is a “search,” especially when done in the context of security screening. The result of that search can include restricting your ability to travel, maligning your reputation, and interfering with your rights to engage in commerce.
That simple act entails more than just “am I ok to fly?” There are complex data privacy rights, civil rights, and other legal issues here. There are complex inter-governmental coordination questions to be answered.
Airports and health clinics cramming Q-tips up noses doesn’t entail any of that.
It’s an ad hoc approach that is largely “security theatre” (which I’ll explain in a minute.)
Now there are times we required people give up their liberty in order to ensure safety. But we don’t have a patchwork of when this done in airline travel.
For example, we don’t allow some cities to screen bags and not others. Everyone screens. We have international standards even for screening. We negotiate international treaties over it. We have the federal government heavily involved in national and international air transportation safety.
But testing for a potentially deadly pathogen that is the source of an international pandemic should be left to a patchwork of health clinics and airports?
How is that the logical, reasonable, and “right thing to do,” in combatting Coronavirus?
Now you may say, “well the hell with all that, I want to get on a plane and fly to Disneyworld!”
Ok, fine – get on the plane.
All this testing in the end, is largely “security theatre,” and has little impact on whether or not planes are actually good mechanisms to spread the virus (beyond moving people around quickly, and given the tests themselves are fundamentally flawed, even if we test it won’t stop those who are infected).
The reality is that planes are awful vehicles by and large of transmission. They have strong filtration systems, an inhospitable environment for viruses, and short of some jerk sneezing on you, its exceptionally unlikely you will contract (or transmit) coronavirus to others. Recent testing by the Department of Defense has confirmed all of this.
Airports testing doesn’t accomplish much of anything, beyond creating all sorts of problems absent a national policy structure and a system of testing that actually works.
Again, I’m putting aside that the tests we have now are apparently no better than a coin-toss, but to add that back into the mix, now you have an ad hoc framework using a testing mechanism little better than a Ouija board determining the rights of passengers to travel.
So I pose again, how is that the legitimate and reasonable framework to accomplish airline safety?
I’m not against testing. But I am saying that this activity is an inherently governmental function. It’s a search. The results of that search could have far reaching privacy and civil rights implications.
Do you really want it left to a private entity (or a quasi-governmental entity)?
I understand why the airlines and airports desperately want to do something, they’re fighting for their lives. They think, “hey we’ll have some tests, everyone will be happy, we’ll make money again.”
But that’s not how this works.
That’s not how any of this works.
Bryan Del Monte is the President of The Aviation Agency. He has deep expertise in business strategy development, economics and the aviation industry.
