[20200320]IN11265_2019冠状病毒疾病与航空客运.pdf

CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress INSIGHTINSIGHTi i COVID-19 and Passenger Airline Travel Bart Elias Specialist in Aviation Policy March 20, 2020 The COVID-19 global pandemic presents particular risks and challenges to commercial passenger airline travel. Taking a passenger flight involves numerous interpersonal interactions, transiting through often crowded airport terminals, and sitting in close proximity to others for extended periods, both onboard aircraft and at airport gates. These activities may increase the probability of exposure to infectious disease. Curtailing infectious disease spread through airline travel is challenging, in part because the passenger airline system in the United States is highly concentrated around 30 large hub airports, with tens of thousands of passengers passing through each of these airports every day. In early March 2019, a year before the COVID-19 outbreak, about 2.25 million passengers passed through screening checkpoints across the United States on a daily basis. Passenger activity for early March 2020 appeared to be only slightly lower, averaging just under 2 million daily passengers. However, as travel restrictions