SAS Opens Reservations For First Electric Flight - AVweb

News Discussion
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Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has announced that it will open seat reservations on June 2, 2023, for its first planned commercial electric flights. The airline is expecting the flights to take place in 2028 with one domestic route apiece in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The cost for a ticket is SEK 1,946 ($180), a number SAS set as a tribute to the year the airline started flying. The airline noted that 30 seats will be available on each flight with ticket fees to be collected 30 days prior to departure.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/sas-opens-reservations-for-first-electric-flight
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You are looking at the wrong metrics even if there were any validity to them. Random testing on 4,611 participants (in the Indiana study) might be a sufficient number if the tests results were accurate and those tested were truly selected at random.
According to a World Health Organization report, my situation at age 75 places me in the 8% mortality category which translates to one death in 13 patients. Not a risk I am willing to take. At age 60 I would be in the one-in-28 bracket which might be tempting. I think that one must assume that they will become infected and weigh the impact on them and their families on that basis.

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Overkill or Prudence…Interesting choice of words Paul. Every country that put into strict practice, masking, social distancing, lock-downs, in tandem with widespread testing including multiple testing over time followed with contact tracing, has had a remarkable reduction in spread which automatically lowers the death rate. It appears that the “overkill” efforts ( by American cultural standards) caused a reduction in deaths, which one might term as “overkill” efforts resulting in “underkill” of it’s citizenry. The added bonus has been a faster return to a sustainable economic recovery with better assurances of that it remain sustainable because you have a population willing to follow what works…even when it is inconvenient.

Want an even more evidence that “overkill” ( by American cultural standards) results in “underkill” of the population? Look at Japan. They admit they have dropped the ball regarding widespread testing. However, they have no problem masking. They have returned to opening up their economy while having one of the densest population numbers per square mile on the planet including a very crowded transportation system. They have an attitude about looking out for each other that is considerably different from the American “rugged individualism” perspective. Cooperation is second nature to them for greater societal good. Simple masking has been demonstrated, in real time, in Thailand, S Korea, China, Vietnam, and Japan to be highly effective dealing with Covid-19 transmission along with as much as it is possible in such crowded quarters, social distancing, practicing hand washing hygiene, and staying home when sick.

But for some reason, millions of people demonstrating societal cooperation by the simplest “prudent” exercise of masking when in close quarters publicly is deemed “overkill” by citizens of the country that now has the highest death numbers and numbers of known infections. New Zealand has no known Covid-19 infections today because they were “prudent” in exercising “overkill”. None of these multiple examples of practicing “overkill” have any superior health system, no vaccine, no miracle drug. All they have done is acted with “prudence” as Paul did when jumping out of a perfectly good airplane ( had to say that over-worn cliche when in the discussion of “prudence”) with several other equally cooperatively "prudent " cohorts.

Personally, I don’t need to come up with some sort of numerical risk assessment ratio to gain some sort of statistical number to determine my chances of getting Covid-19. Nor do I need for some politician or CDC guru to tell me one day yes, another day no, with lines like “studies have been inconclusive” about ____________ ( fill in the blanks) regarding “flattening the curve” of Covid-19. No, all I gotta do is what millions of other on this blue orb has already done dealing with the same disease, at the same time, with the same fears, with no more of a therapeutic hope nor vaccine viability than I currently have. That is masking when shopping or out and about, staying home if sick, keeping my distance from others masked or not, washing my hands, not feeling violated if I come up with Covid-19 about contact tracing, wiping down surfaces I have touched including stuff in my airplane, being as cooperative as I can with what has been demonstrated to work. To me, that is not “overkill”. Instead, that is “prudence”. I appreciate that there are others, like Paul, who are demonstrating “prudence” by “overkill”.

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The COVID-19 became a bewildering threat after December 2019 developing into a global highly contagious viral runaway. Since then, 188 countries have reported 7 million cases, from which 3.3 million people have partially or fully recovered and more than 406,000 people have died from the virus. I choose PRUDENCE.

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One of the many aspects of the flying community that I like is exactly the attitude that we are all in this together. As a population we know that the risks of flying can be mitigated by thoughtful adherence to not only the the regulations (that, as they say, are written with the blood of others) but to common standards of behavior where we watch each others backs, because it just might be you who gets hit by random chance and are put into a life-threatening situation. I’m not sure where it comes from, but I see more and more in the popular culture the celebration of selfishness, as if giving up a particular right or freedom, even if it’s temporary, is the first step to a totalitarian nanny state. Despite appearances to the contrary, we’re all adults here and adults look at the greater whole for the advancement of the greater good, not because they are forced to, but because they choose to. Sticking to some simple rules of conduct for the common good is frankly not a big imposition.
I’m looking forward to some more dual time in that Cub. I’ll follow what that the instructor asks in order for us both to feel comfortable. If I don’t agree, I won’t fly. I’m free to choose.

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Paul, to your point that “… … the World Health Organization now says asymptomatic transmission may be rare. I await the second-day story on that before passing judgment.” : the “second-day story on that” is the WHO meant to say “pre-symptomatic transmission” and that they were in error for saying “asymptomatic transmission”. So nothing has changed in that regard.

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All I know for sure is that I find wearing a mask to be very uncomfortable (and after more than a few minutes it tends to make me claustrophobic too), and it’s only going to get worse as the temperature and humidity rises throughout summer. So that along with the uncertainty of how effective (if at all) these cloth masks are at reducing the spread of the virus, I simply avoid going anywhere or doing anything that requires a mask. Flying is supposed to be fun, and for me, it’s just not fun with a mask.

As for the sanitation efforts flight schools are taking, they’re passive, not very intrusive, and other than taking a little bit of time, have no downsides. Though I would also say instead of the regular sanitizing, it might just be easier to wear gloves instead. And until there is a vaccine or effective treatment available, physical distancing (where available) is still prudent to be following.

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That’s rather curious. So if you would exhibit symptoms but you don’t yet have symptoms, you’re likely not spreading the virus? But if you simply don’t have any symptoms, you may still be spreading it? I would say that actually changes the message quite a bit. In any case, the story of covid is one that has been constantly changing before we even get to the end, which just shows how little about it we actually know. Or could it be that the virus is changing right in front of us, and that the one in circulation now is not the same one that originally started all of this?

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This is even more confusing. I read two stories on this this morning, neither of which clarifies the difference between asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic. Both mean no symptoms present. The Chinese study found a 14 percent incidence of asymptomatic transmission. Not huge, but not rare either.

I await further clarification.

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To me, the gloves make little sense. Medical personal wear them not to protect themselves, but for patient-to-patient protection. You can’t get the virus through your hands; this much we know. So frequent hand washing is the defense against contaminated hands. I’d keep hand sanitizer in the airplane before using gloves and maybe even cleaning the airplane itself.

Fomite transmission is thought to be really rare. Which is why I don’t wipe down the mail or the Amazon boxes. But I wash my hands a lot. And stay out of crowds.

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Abstain from kissing floors and bringing shoes into the house after hiking at grocery stores and the like.

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How can the pilot in the title photo to this article be safely piloting that pressurized airplane with that mask on. What happens if the plane has a rapid depressurization? Masks don’t seal with beards, so what makes anyone think wearing that mask is any different. Not that I agree with the beard issue, but I find it hypocritical for FAA inspectors to tell companies male pilots in pressurized planes can’t have a beard but then look the other way on wearing masks in cockpit! My company has left that decision up to crews and after boarding passengers and entering my cockpit the masks come off. Not one crew member has complained.

I think all of the various riots that have occurred have demonstrated how a lot of people think of masks and social distancing restrictions. The next two weeks should determine if all those restrictions have had any effect.

I also have been at one of the drop zones I jump at this past weekend. The only persons I saw with masks on was the manager/owner and manifest persons. Very few skydivers were wearing any face covering on the airplane and the airplane was taking full loads up. (12 skydivers on a Kodak) Tandems were also being done. The jump pilot was not wearing one either. I would have jumped myself but am still dealing with a right elbow injury that makes it difficult to throw out my pilot chute. My wife did jump twice.

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Fair warning to those getting tiredly and sloppy. ”The top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, delivered a grim assessment of the devastation wrought around the world by the coronavirus, describing Covid-19 on Tuesday as his “worst nightmare” … “In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world,” Dr. Fauci told biotech executives during a conference held by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. “And it isn’t over yet.” NYT June 9, 2020

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Paul’s comment about flight attendants’ involuntary exposure to COVID risk is spot on. Those unmasked pax seem to subscribe to a social ethic that excuses behavior which can harm others as long as the harm is not imminent. I know this to be factually correct because I was exactly that person until the Army got hold of me and drilled the concept of shared sacrifice into my thick and immature skull - perhaps it’s time to bring back the draft.

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The only use of those terms that makes sense to me is as overlapping categories:
asymptomatic – no symptoms and no information on subsequent health
pre-symptomatic – subsequently found to be positive, contact occurred before symptoms confirmed.

I’ll wait to see a followup story with some more facts.

Your long video was very helpful.

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I agree with you, Jim. We now have months more real-world data, a macro-level experiment, in which there are winners (NZ, SK, Japan, etc.) and losers (the US, Brazil, Sweden, etc.) and many countries with outcomes in between. The winners used and use masks, social distancing (sometimes to extreme shutdown), hand washing, surface wiping - real blunt actions. The losers didn’t and don’t. It’s pretty basic and pretty clear.

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Not all of the unmasked people are foregoing masks because of a “social ethic”. Keep in mind that the rule specifically says mask wearing is mandatory “unless contrary to health”. Some people have ailments that makes it very difficult to breath through a mask, or they simply are unable to wear one for an extended period.

There is also very little scientific information on the effectiveness of these masks, and it may turn out that they have almost no effect (or maybe even a negative effect) on virus transmission. As with much of this virus, we simply don’t know. The only thing we do know for sure is that washing hands, not touching the face, and maintaining physical distancing (and the 6-foot rule is really just a bare minimum, not a guarantee) is the only thing that does have a positive effect in slowing down transmission.

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The second-day story I read was that the WHO researchers had distinguished between “asymptomatic” meaning “never showed meaningful symptoms even after a long period” and “presymptomatic” meaning “developed symptoms later”. Apparently when they contract-traced people who turned up positive in testing, and who didn’t subsequently develop symptoms, they didn’t find much evidence those people had infected anyone else. I don’t know if the study had corrected for false positive tests.

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It is never time to reintroduce involuntary servitude. It’s morally wrong to force young men to protect everyone else’s security and wealth so that you don’t have to offer the kind of pay, benefits, service norms and missions that would attract enough volunteers.

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https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/09/who-comments-asymptomatic-spread-covid-19/