Airlines prepare for uptick in passengers during holiday season

Air travel has seen a slight decrease since the beginning of the pandemic. Although, with the holidays quickly approaching, families are making plans to see their loved ones and in some instances that requires riding up an airplane. The Meridian Regional Airport is making sure their planes and Homeland Security checks are safe.

“One of the first things we started doing was cleaning and sanitizing the thermal building--making sure all of our people in the thermal wear a mask,” says President of Meridian Airport Authority Tom Williams. The airplane is completely sanitized before every flight. In fact, if for some reason that doesn’t happen, the flight doesn’t leave. Also all the passengers and crew are required to wear a mask.”

Williams says they did not close the airport during the pandemic, but did make changes to fit the needs of their passengers such as plane capacity. According to a recent study by the Department of Defense United Airlines, COVID-19 transmission on airplanes is extremely low--making air travel the safest way to travel at this time.

“People don’t realize how fast the air turns over in an airplane. The air exchanges about every 90 seconds to 2 minutes because of the way the pressurization system works. So you’re getting fresh air into the airplane at all times and the dirty air is going out.”

The airport does anticipate seeing an uptick in passengers for travel once the holiday season draws near.

“We’re starting to see an increase of reservations moving forward especially for the Thanksgiving time frame. It’s going to be a slow road back for airports and aviation worldwide, but the sooner the better.”