The travel industry all over the world has been hit hard by the pandemic. Airlines have

already lost billions of dollars and roughly a hundred thousand airline workers have taken

voluntary unpaid or low paid leave. I've talked a lot on this podcast about how you can

best protect yourself if you have to fly. But it's important to also hear from inside the

airline industry about what the future holds for air travel. So today I'm going to turn it

over to my colleague, CNN anchor and host of her own podcast, Boss Files, Poppy Hullo.

Poppy's going to speak with Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastion about how one of the largest

airlines in the world is responding to the coronavirus. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical

correspondent and this is coronavirus fact versus fiction.

Ed Bastion, thank you so much for being here. Happy to be with you.

All right, so give us an overview right now. What is the state of the airline industry today?

Well, we just finished the July 4th holiday and we had a pretty nice demand pickup for the

4th of July. Today we're flying a schedule that's about 30% of what it ought to be at this time

of year, but that's about twice where we were just a few months ago. So demands picking up, but I'd

say we're in a kind of a cautious pause right now. Let's talk about what it's like to fly right now.

Delta has mandated masks for anyone who wants to get on your planes, but the federal government

isn't right? They're just recommending it. How hard does that make your job? Do you want the

federal government to mandate masks on all commercial airlines? It would certainly help and I do

believe that would be a good action. I don't expect it to happen though. So what the federal

government has done is left it up to each airline to make their own decisions. So masks are mandated

on Delta and for any customer who's not wearing a mask will not gain access to the airplane. You

need to be wearing a mask aboard. And while you're on board, while certainly if you need for

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