Should we be social distancing?

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Lovetravelling said:
Our company polices states that crew can form a bubble and act like they're in a bubble if they wish.
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Your company policy doesn't overrule the laws of the countries you travel to. If the rules in your stopover country say that you should socially distance in those circumstances then you should do so.
 
Lovetravelling said:
Our company polices states that crew can form a bubble and act like they're in a bubble if they wish.
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Your company policy appears to be obviously wrong because it's not the same crew:

Lovetravelling said:
We are with different crew on most layovers. For example I could go to New York tomorrow with one set of crew and spend the layover with that same crew and fly back with the same crew. And then 2 days later I could go to Los Angeles with all different crew expect one or 2 people who I might have been working with on the last layover. [..]
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In this context, "bubble" does not mean "some people who happen to be together at the time".

Lovetravelling said:
[..] During this layover we (the team of crew that are working together on the flight after the layover) usually go out for breakfast and dinner together and often sit around the same table closer than 2 meters like we would in normal times. A few staff in restaurants have commented saying we shouldn't all be around the table and then when we tell them we work together and can't social distance in work then they still say that we are behaving inappropriately and should social distance and we have had a few other quite rude comments.

Do you think we should be social distancing during the layover's?
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Yes. Partly because you are not a bubble (company policy does not override reality) and partly as an example in public. Groups of people ignoring social distancing rules in restaurants set a bad example and make life harder for the restaurant staff. Say, for example, I'd gone to the same restaurant with several people I knew but was not in a bubble with. We're socially distancing. Your group (which is also some people who know each other and are not in a bubble) is not socially distancing. Someone in my group asks the restaurant staff why we have to socially distance and you don't. It's now a problem for the restaurant staff. A problem you've made for them.

I think your actions are more rude than a few restaurant staff saying that you're behaving inappropriately.


On the one hand, your job requires you to break social distancing rules intended to slow the spread of the pandemic. Your employer is pretending that's not happening, probably as a legal arse-covering exercise. But it is happening. So it could be argued that it doesn't matter on the basis that if the crew was going to cross-infect each other due to lack of social distancing then it would happen during a flight so it doesn't make it any worse for them to not distance at any other time too. But more opportunity for infection is more opportunity for infection. Several days during a layover is longer than a flight. There's also the social aspect, as I mentioned above.
 
Lovetravelling said:
That's exactly how we do it. We do temp checks at the airport before every departure and we distance from everyone who is not our crew.
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Difference between your comapny's method and mine is, that my bubble will be with the same uncleared people for 2 weeks, once that "working quarantine" period is done and we pass testing, we will move into another larger bubble with people who have remained out of contact with anyone else who has not gone through a 2 week "bubble". For your work this would be impossible to do even if you could remained with the same flight team all the time.
 
Uther said:
All that mixing of crews sounds like a recipe for disaster.
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Yes...but is it worse than the alternative? It would probably be possible to run an inefficient skeleton air freight service with crews who are actually in a bubble, but that would be all and it would have to be publically funded as there'd be no hope of running it commercially.
 
Lovetravelling said:
We are with different crew on most layovers. For example I could go to New York tomorrow with one set of crew and spend the layover with that same crew and fly back with the same crew. And then 2 days later I could go to Los Angeles with all different crew expect one or 2 people who I might have been working with on the last layover.

Flights are long haul, the layover's are either 2, 3 or 4 nights depending on the destination and our roster (flight schedule).
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Yeah, you probably should distance then if it's different groups from different places etc.. Presumably you wear masks on the plane? It's kind of a confined space but I guess at least there is ventilation and decent filters when the air is recirculated. Once you're in a restaurant and close with these different groups etc.. then you could much more easily spread the virus.

The argument for offices etc.. was that it is the same people each day etc.. and obvs everyone is known to each other, can be contact traced easily etc..
 
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