Delta Air Lines will continue blocking middle seats through end of April

Delta Air Lines is sticking with social distancing.

The carrier announced Monday it had extended its policy to block middle seats on its planes through April 30. The policy had been set to expire at the end of this month.

Delta says it is now the only airline that is blocking the middle seat and reducing the number of people on board.

“We want our customers to have complete confidence when traveling with Delta, and they continue to tell us that more space provides more peace of mind,” said Bill Lentsch, Delta’s chief customer experience officer in a statement. “We’ll continue to reassess seat blocking in relation to case transmission and vaccination rates, while bringing back products and services in ways that instill trust in the health and safety of everyone on board.”

The company has been utilizing seat blocking since last April.

Other carriers have done away with those policies in recent months. JetBlue phased out its seat blocking policies late last year, in anticipation of holiday travel surges and, as of Jan. 8, no longer limits cabin capacity at all. Southwest began booking its middle seats last December. And American and United did away with the policies last summer.

In addition, Delta has expanded its collection of rapid-testing centers to airports in Minneapolis and Detroit. It already offers the service in Atlanta, Boston, New York–JFK, and Seattle.

Airlines were decimated by the pandemic last year—and are hoping the vaccine will spur people to take to the skies once again this year. Delta sees “a level of optimism” from the vaccines, said Joe Esposito, vice president for network planning.

“Six months, even three months ago, we didn’t know where the end was,” Esposito said. “Now we can at least see that in spring and summer there’s going to be pent-up demand for people to travel and get out because everybody has lost a year.”