A new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that eliminating the middle seat on board flights can dramatically cut the transmission risk of COVID-19.

Experts at MIT state that flying is relatively low risk to begin with because the odds of getting the disease from a nearby passenger is only 1 in 4,300. By not booking center seats to allow more space between passengers, that risk plummets to 1 in 7,700

According to Fox News, the research paper titled “Covid-19 Risk Among Airline Passengers: Should the Middle Seat Stay Empty?” was published in MedRxiv earlier this month.

One of the study authors, Arnold Barnett, told ZDNet that the “airlines are setting their own policies but the airlines and the public should know about the risk implications of their choices.”

Barnett, an award-winning statistician with MIT, said that his research was based on the fact all passengers were wearing masks and did not take into account the dangers of infection transmission while boarding or leaving the plane  or catching the disease from “contagious passengers walking up and down the aisle to the lavatory, or within the lavatory itself.”

According to Business Insider, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, slammed American Airlines for announcing it was planning to resume full flights and stop blocking middle seats.

“When they announced that the other day, obviously there was substantial disappointment,” said Redfield, adding that American was sending the wrong message to the public, according to Business Insider. Other airlines such as United and Sprit continue to sell every seat on board while Delta said it would still limit passenger seating until at least the fall.