In 2003, James Burke revisited his 1978 series "Connections" in a 1-hour interview session, "ReConnections". Asked to describe how he would continue the original series' ending inventions forward, for the jet airplane his answer was immediate: pandemics. Beginning about 47m30s here:
https://archive.org/details/JamesBurkeReConnections_0
Critical to realise: SARS-COV-2 isn't the only, and won't be the last new, virus (or other infectious agent) out there.
But plane travel carries infected people long distances. There's going to be a bunch of countries insisting on 2 weeks quarantine for any new arrivals.
Is that really a bad thing? My experience on long haul flights is that most people sleep. Some people even voluntarily take drugs so they fall asleep sooner/easier.
In non-car-centric cities there simply isn’t any other realistic way to get to work.
However, travel obviously takes you to a new place, where the every day risks might be much greater or at least less well known than the ones you have to accept by virtue of just staying alive where you live.
Further, you also have the risk of being stranded due to local outbreaks closing borders at some point during your trip, making the duration of the trip itself uncertain. Not many people take lightly the risk of not knowing when they can get home from their vacation.
>On most aircraft, air is also circulated through hospital-grade HEPA filters, which remove 99.97 percent of bacteria, as well as the airborne particles that viruses use for transport (many regional jets lack these filters). Additionally, cabins are divided into separate ventilation sections about every seven rows of seats, which means that you share air only with those in your immediate environment and not with the guy who’s coughing up a lung ten rows back.
Also, I have flown maybe 50 times in my life, but only been on a packed subway maybe once? Not the same for most people.
Can you explain your situation? Naively that sounds like an incredible feat!