Imagine 9 passengers sitting like this:

    ***
    ***
    ***

Now lets remove 4 of them:

    * *
     *
    * *
      

I would say every one has at least a 50% reduction in the number of people close to them. On top of that, minimum distance and average distance both went up. I wouldn't be surprised if the infection rate in the second example is only 10% of the first.

Pair that with everyone wearing a mask. I have read that the infection rate goes down by 95% between two people wearing a mask in comparison to two peole wearing no mask.

Pair that with a 10-minute test [1] which everyone has to take at the airport and let only negatively tested passangers on board.

I think instead of trying to wait it out and print money, we should start to engineer ourselfes out of this crisis.

[1] https://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-third-solution.h...

> Pair that with a 10-minute test [1] which everyone has to take at the airport and let only negatively tested passangers on board.

Isn't that the only thing you'd need? Then the seating arrangement wouldn't be relevant. Seems unnecessary to require both.

Depends on how quickly after an infection the test detects it. And on how reliable the test is.

Isn't the distance completely irrelevant in an airplane anyway, seeing as everyone is in a closed, pressurised environment with recirculated air?

That would hold true if the virus would behave like a gas that dissolves in air. But it is carried by droplets that fall to the ground.

I would think there is not more wind in an airplane then in a supermarket. So the droplets that carry the virus should fall down to the ground in a similar fashion.

It is not really recirculated air. Most use compressor fan bypass air with one-way check valves throughout the cabin.