-You can tell how the airline industry
is doing these days by what you hear.
That sound?
Just the wind catching the fan blades inside an engine.
You're hearing this
instead of the roar of takeoffs and landings
at Atlanta's big airport, the world's busiest.
Here, you can also see how the airlines are doing.
Planes lounging in the grass, or it just seems that way.
This Atlanta runway closed,
now a parking lot for some of Delta's fleet.
The US airline industry is flying on empty.
Empty airports, empty terminal trains,
empty rows on nearly-empty planes,
airlines burning through cash as coronavirus keeps people away.
And pricey assets like planes just sit.
-We've got over 600 planes grounded at the present time.
We're only flying about 10%, 10% to 15% of our schedule.
-Those dark clouds over Atlanta March 11th --
an omen of sorts as coronavirus set in,
and everything soon stopped.
Crowded concourse scenes from March now look like this,
with US passenger counts off by 95%.
In the C concourse, one half is open.
The other half closed off by a temporary wall.
Atlanta usually sees around 2,500 flights a day.
Now it says flights are down 77%, some airline clubs closed.
The airport says 300 of its 340 concessions,
like shops and restaurants, shuttered.
If you want to fly, all the airlines are now
requiring everyone to wear a mask.
At United, even this plane has one, a symbolic gesture.
The airlines are waging a sort of arms race
for who's doing the most cleaning.
-High-grade disinfectant.
-We will give all aircraft a thorough cleaning.
-The sanitization spraying that we are doing
before every flight.
-For your peace of mind, we're going to be
cleaning between each flight every time.
-At the gate, everyone's keeping their distance.
Easy to do with a little more than a dozen passengers
on a 149-seat plane.
Those backups just outside the door,
like this one in the middle of March, gone.
Delta is now boarding planes
back to front so fewer passengers pass by.
Social distancing also means certain seats are blocked.
On this plane, some on the aisle and all in the middle.
Service comes in a baggie, stripped down to reduce
physical contact between crew and passengers.
That in-flight magazine?
Also gone, the March issue now like a time capsule
from what feels like years ago.
Ads touting Delta's 95th birthday,
the airline starting in the Mississippi Delta
as a crop-dusting company.
Now even the magazine may be snuffed out.
It stopped publishing and the staff let go.
The problem for airlines is demand for travel is about zero.
When it comes back, no one knows.
-We're going to do whatever we need to do
to re-inspire confidence in business travel,
as well as leisure travel, going forward.
-The head of Southwest Airlines wants this.
-We're urging the TSA to begin temperature scans
as part of the screening process at the checkpoints.
-When we come back from this,
if we don't have medical treatments available,
the resumption of travel will be a lot slower.
-Good morning, Atlanta.
-The airlines have gotten billions of dollars
in government aid to keep going,
to keep paying employees through September,
but after that, if business doesn't pick up,
cuts seem certain in people, cities, and routes.
For now, airlines are cutting planes.
This 29-year-old MD-88 going back to Washington
with under 20 passengers
is flying through its final days.
Delta is parking the older, noisier fleet by June.