Will Airlines Fly Empty Planes?

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 28, 6:15AM EST

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Will Airlines Fly Empty Planes? — © Bychykhin_Olexandr / Getty Images

U.S. airlines have started to allow people to change the dates of flights they have booked to and from China, at no charge. China’s own carriers have seen a collapse in traffic. In some cases, local carriers have cut the number of flights or are not flying at all. As the coronavirus spreads, and the number of people on flights plunges, will airlines, particularly U.S. airlines, stop flying or will they keep their schedules and fly nearly deserted planes?

Carriers face a crossroads. People, and at some point perhaps intrepid people, will expect airlines to keep their schedules. This will be particularly true of flights inside the United States. However, if the coronavirus starts to spread here, it will be impossible to say that planes are safe. The virus can have a gestation period of two weeks. During that time, some people will not show any symptoms. Travelers will not know if their flights may be dangerous.

The airline problem is just the tip of an iceberg that could include industries as broad as fast food to automotive sales. In no period in recent history were Americans were afraid to congregate in public places. Some estimates say that the new coronavirus could spread to as many as 100,000 people in China. At that point, the odds skyrocket that it spreads broadly around the world.

American companies already have started to suffer the effects of the virus on their businesses in China. McDonald’s and Starbucks have shuttered stores, for example. Small numbers of people in most Asian counties have been infected. Maps of the world, posted by major media, show a spread to Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States. The count of people who have the virus is tiny in most Western nations, for now.

At what point will American companies suffer sales dips of their businesses at home? Perhaps never. Yet, it may only take a few hundred cases for a measure of prudence to smother short-term performance, whether that is among airlines or a much broader portion of the American economy.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.