American Airlines Flight Attendant Dies Coronavirus
This pandemic has affected the travel industry in a number of ways which will change things forever. Up until now the airline news has been mostly financial, but we are now learning of the human toll of COVID-19 as well. According to CNN, Paul Frishkom a Philadelphia based union representative and American Airlines flight attendant most likely has passed away from the virus.
American Airlines confirmed the death to CNN, however a cause of death has not been released. Apparently his outgoing voicemail did say he was ill and awaiting test results for COVID-19, but the results have yet to be released to the public.
It’s unknown if Friskhorn had preexisting conditions, however he was in his 60s making him more at risk for complications from the virus compared to younger people. Other flight attendants praised Friskhorn describing him as “larger than life”, “amazing and totally selfless” and “a good soldier”.
Are the Skies Safe?
We know that many of the nation’s and indeed the world’s flight attendants are grounded due to current events, however travel still is not completely shutdown and many are still in the air. “Flight attendants are very much on edge right now,” said Tracy Sear and American Airlines flight attendant.
Planes are the definition of tight spaces and despite the low crowds I imagine exposure to customers in the confined space of an airplane is unavoidable. Add in the ongoing exposure to different airports and it’s enough to give anyone anxiety. No doubt many flight attendants across our country are infected or at the very least lack the ability to properly distance themselves from others.
Bottom Line
Paul Frishkom seemed like a well loved and respected long time member of the American Airlines team and we send our condolences to his family and his colleagues at American Airlines. Flight attendants across the country are on edge with this virus and it doesn’t seem like that will change any time soon.
What do you think? Is there anything airlines can do to better protect flight attendants? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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The silver lining of all this is that all the old, ancient, prehistoric flying matrons will finally and utterly retire.
It’s probably time for the airlines to simply stop service for a while, and turn over some critical skeleton service to the government, for a couple months.
And whenever airlines return to service, I can imagine (and hope) that flight crews will be allowed to wear masks and gloves, and reduce the amount of contact they have with food and service items. Because even after we reach a point where it’s relatively safe for average travelers to fly, flight crews will still be exposed to far more potentially sick people (as they always have been) on a daily basis. For their own health, I would totally be happy to see them wearing masks on board for quite a long time – in fact, we should probably normalize mask wearing in high-contact professions permanently! A small trade off to keep people healthy in this, and in future disease outbreaks of all kinds.
I’d say we should all wear masks like Asian countries that have controlled the disease. Question is …. will this scary travel situation be here for12-18 months How do airlines recover?
Giving older flight attendants or ones that have a compromised respiratory system who are at higher risk from the virus the option to not fly would seem prudent.