The Minister disclosed this at a webinar attended by stakeholders in the aviation sector,  which focuses on the status of the industry restart.

Sirika, while responding to a question from the Managing Director of Aero Contractors, Capt. Ado Sanusi, who wondered if social distancing would affect the prices of airfares, said total social distancing was impossible to attain in the airplanes.

In his words: “The person sitting beside or behind you is not two meters away from you.

“When people say they would block one seat between passengers, what of the guy behind you and the one in front of you? The guy in front of you is in danger, should you sneeze or cough, you are actually coughing over his head.

“ It is very difficult to achieve because it means you have to take a sit on my left, right in front and behind to achieve at least 0.5 meters.”

The Minister, further argued that “To achieve that you are saying 30 or 40 per cent capacity should be allowed. I think we should research more between today and over the weekend to come up with something that we can announce soon.

“I cannot see us achieving physical distancing within the airplane and make money.”

He challenged stakeholders to come up with some ingenious way of achieving safety within the cabin rather than physical distancing.

Ida Gomez Llanos, who worked for the company for 57 years, claims she was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by envious colleagues who wanted her gone because of her seniority and whopping $250,000 salary.

The lawsuit, filed this month in a Los Angeles court, claims she was “harassed” and “bullied,” and that the spreading of lies led to her being penalized and eventually terminated.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Llanos told the Daily Mail. “I’ve been accused of so many things and none were true. I try not to take it personally, but when you get mean about me and start lying, that is a problem.”

Llanos, who was reportedly the highest-ranking flight attendant in Los Angeles and ranked fifth in the country, said she received her first write-up in nearly 60 years in April 2018. She had been accused of stealing a carton of milk, as well as cereal packets and a chocolate bar. Colleagues also claimed Llanos put Bailey’s Irish Cream in her coffee.

‘They want to get rid of the older flight attendants,” she said. “I think they put us on a higher surveillance. It’s because they have to pay us so much because we’ve been there forever and your pay scale goes up each year. I think they can hire four newer flight attendants for what they pay me.”

Llanos said that as the most senior flight attendant in Los Angeles, she received company perks like a priority on overtime shifts. Her colleagues, she said, became envious of her and launched a smear campaign to get her fired.