If you've ever wondered whether that empty middle seat on a plane is actually helping keep you safer, a new lab study offers some clues. Researchers created a model of single-aisle and twin-aisle aircraft cabins and found that keeping the middle seat vacant reduced simulated COVID-19 exposures by 23% to 57% compared to a fully occupied cabin.
It's important to understand what this study is—and isn't. This was a laboratory modeling scenario. Scientists used an aerosol of a bacteriophage, which is a type of virus that infects bacteria, to stand in for SARS-CoV-2. They measured how the simulated 'exposure' changed with different seating arrangements in their model cabins.
Because this was a lab model and not a study with real people on real flights, we can't say for sure how this reduction would play out in the real world. The cabin airflow, passenger movements, and the actual behavior of the COVID-19 virus are more complex. The finding points to a potential benefit of physical distancing in a confined space like an airplane, but it's an estimate from a controlled scenario, not a proven result from human experience.