When life begins to return to normal (!) I'm left wondering about the retraining costs for hundreds of thousands FD crews and ATC controllers, not to mention scores of other related jobs.

Cannot tell you for everybody , but for ATC we can keep partially current on simulators,most large facilities have their own , and the traffic will not restart at the flip of a switch , it will be gradual and people will be able to re- validate fairly easily as traffic comes up again ( if it does) .
The more immediate danger I see for us controllers is the actual number of controllers left when it will restart. If ANSPs are getting rid of staff , some are already planing a 50% lay off, there will be an issue as all previous experience shows the vast majority of them do not come back in the profession.
And recruiting and retraining new controllers take years. If we get over the peak in the next 4-6 months , if may work for us , if it last more than 2 years as some are predicting , this will be a major issue.

3 landings in a simulator and your good to go (in addition to your LPC/OPC every 6 months. Don't really see an issue there

That makes no sense though. If social distancing is not required on an airplane as long as you wear a mask then why do we need to enforce it anywhere else?. We can remove all those bits of tape on the floor telling where to stand..

Tommy Gavin

After 2 years not flying ?

cash-ash

Aer Lingus BHD - LHR had plenty of seats filled this morning.

Can't post the link however you can search for @KellyBonner on Twitter.

Aer Lingus responded to say they're reviewing their processes and procedures in light of the unexpectedly high loads on this route.

Comments from the public are interesting,

here is the pictures from the flight-
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-52539141

How can an airline fail to know how many seats it has sold on a flight ?

Pistonprop

Never fly with management pilots then ;)
Of course this is the very bare minimum. But as I do not see all the planes take to the air at the same time I really do not see many issues as long as you keep a 'core group' current in the mean time.
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Apart from the added comfort I think most people can see that leaving the middle seat free, when in the vast majority of cases people are seated inches behind and in front of you does not really solve the social distancing problem. Studies done after SARS showed that that at least two clear rows distancing was required to avoid infection. Clearly that is not going to be possible, so we need to find some other solution. The most likely scenario is a basket of measures, for example face masks, testing pre flight and the introduction of rules for acceptable behaviour and probably sanctions for non compliance. Add to this that a number of people will be disinclined to travel because of the risk and uncertainty then it is obvious that things are not going to be as they were before for some while yet.

French minister of Economy Bruno Lemaire announced this morning a ban of Domestic flights in France between city pairs that can be reached by train in less than 2,5 Hours.
Travel bans ( for non essential travel) and mandatory quarantine for outside Shengen Borders + UK in place to last until after Summer 2020.

This has no chance of passing EU scrutiny. Freedom of movement of people goods and services.

A link to an extraordinary video of what looks like a significant part of American Airline's fleet grounded in Pittsburgh with credit to Juan Brown (an AA B777 F/O who runs a YouTube channel under the ID "blancolirio").

here is link-

Not what was said ... the ban" of flight between city that can be reached by train in less than 2,5hours is part of the deal the government made with Air France with the 7 billion loan ... So other airlines will do what they want ... And it is when a fast train line is used and not only the 2h30 with other train ... So in fact it will be 6/7 city connected with Paris + air France can still do those flight but for connecting passenger only.

French government changed their mind about the quarantine and for all people coming from EU (so UK is included 😉) + Schengen area won t have to do a quarantine if traveling to France (can be found on Google)

Here a link but in French :
https://lepetitjournal.com/expat-pra...-france-279767

And in my opinion, lot of European countries will follow those kind of idea ... For example in Czech Republic, you need to have a negative covid test done in the last 4 days or you do quarantine.

It won't solve long haul travel but at least airline could resume flight in Schengen area.

​​​​​​Let s be honest, the sky is cloudy but nobody knows if it is going to turn CAVOK or heavy rain ! If you follow news like me, it change every 2days (French government literally said the total opposite with quarantine for every body 24hr before the update of now)

Thanks for that KPD! bit of finger trouble posting the link on my side. But they are spectacular and sobering images.

no problem - and the images certainly are.

Is it possible for the Aircraft manufacturers to modify the seating arrangement in AC to fit into social distancing norms, instead of leaving the middle seats empty. Like, completely removing the middle rows and creating separate aisle for each column so that there is less cross overs or touching between the pax. This will boost the confidence of travelling public who may otherwise avoid air travel

To have 6 feet between passengers, you'd have to build space in both laterally (as you said) and longitudinally, so that means removing half the seats in the aircraft. They've modeled the revenue per flight with these kinds of arrangements and they are a money-losing endeavor. Airplanes are just too high cost of machines for carting around a bunch of empty space. Not only that, but the air re-circulation in many aircraft is more beneficial to spreading disease than it is preventing it, so that will have to be reconsidered.