Great TV Special: How Air Travel Is Being Affected By COVID (Even More Than You Thought You Knew)

by joeheg

I was doing errands around the house this weekend and flipping channels for something to watch. As is usual, unless you’re into sportsing stuff, which I’m not, the pickings were slim. I could rewatch a movie I’ve seen several times before or leave on a nature-based, animal-related or home renovation series, but that’d be about it.

One network caught my eye because I saw a pilot being interviewed in front of a plane. I watched and a few minutes and saw that this was a special on CNBC about the aviation industry hosted by their newest anchor, Shepard Smith. It’s called “Shepard Smith Reports: Air Travel in Turmoil.”

I didn’t have the time to watch the whole thing but I did find it on YouTube (without commercials). The entire program lasts about 45 minutes.

The show is based around LaGuardia airport in New York. Segments talk about how the airport kept with plans to open its brand new Terminal B in the middle of the pandemic.

There are interviews with Shep and the airline brass talking about the government bailout packages. However. there are whole sections of the special where he talks to the airport’s front line workers, like a customer service agent, construction worker, TSA Agent, a pilot who contracted COVID, an NYC Taxi driver, an airport concession worker and a family of two newly certified pilots.

The story ends right where we are now. Government funding has stopped and airlines have sent furlough notices to many of their employees, including some of the flight attendants and pilots featured in the story.

The special looks at the people who keep the air transportation system going every day, knowing their job may be cut any day with no certainty of if or when it will ever recover to previous levels.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

Cover Photo via Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office

1 comment

Gene October 18, 2020 - 2:56 pm

@ Sharon — Excellent special by Shepard Smith! So glad he left State News.

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