Amid Coronavirus, Voters Reluctant to Fly, but Split on Airline Bailout

While voters have been relatively receptive to other proposed bailouts in response to the coronavirus, they are split on a stimulus package for airlines, according to a separate Morning Consult poll conducted March 17-20. When asked whether the U.S. government should bail out the airline industry, 31 percent of registered voters said yes, and 35 percent said no. Thirty-four percent answered that they did not know or had no opinion. 

The poll surveyed 1,796 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points. 

The drop in flying has come alongside a fall in carbon emissions, especially in places that were the first to institute wide-scale lockdowns. Satellite imagery of China and Italy shows a dramatic clearing of air pollution in recent weeks. 

And until recently, photos of nearly empty planes have reflected the “ghost flight” phenomenon, wherein airlines fly with few or no passengers simply in order for carriers to maintain a hold on their time slots and flight patterns for when demand returns. Last week, the European Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily suspended rules that require airlines to fly a certain percentage of their flights in order to hold onto their allotted time slots. 

The impact of that waiver — and the drop in demand for flying more broadly — on carbon emissions has yet to be determined, but it will surely mean cleaner skies in the United States. The International Center on Clean Transportation found that carbon emissions from commercial aviation totaled 2.4 percent of global emissions from fossil fuel use in 2018. There has been a 32 percent increase in emissions over the past five years.  

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