Date: 202004
Local time of day: 0601-1200
Location: ZZZ.Airport, US
Light: Daylight
Aircraft: Commercial Fixed Wing
Operator: Air Carrier
Operating under: Part 121
Flight plan: IFR
Mission: Passenger
Flight phase: Parked
Reporter organization: Air Carrier
Reporter function: Captain
Reporter qualification: Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Human factors: Confusion; Other / Unknown
Anomaly: Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Detector: Person Flight Crew
When detected: Pre-flight
Result: General Work Refused
Contributing factors: Company Policy; Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors; Procedure
Primary problem: Company Policy

Narrative: Was scheduled to deadhead back to ZZZ from ZZZ1 after an overnight and deadhead from ZZZ2. I checked the load on the aircraft that morning and the aircraft was overbooked by X people it was an X type aircraft for XXX passengers.  Several messages of maintaining social distancing were played throughout the airport as well as physical signs about maintaining at least 6 feet between you and other people.  We had several announcements on the aircraft from ZZZ2 about spreading out and maintaining social distancing recommendations.  Yet here we were scheduled on an aircraft where every seat was filled.  I notified crew scheduling about the situation (they should have already known).  I had found an aircraft going directly back to my home (ZZZ3) which was less than half full and asked to be released.  I did notify my crew about the situation and told them what I was planning.  However; the FO lives in ZZZ and had no other options; the FAs did not think they could get released and thought that they had no other options.  With no N95 masks to protect themselves and with studies showing that over 50% of infected individuals are asymptomatic the company put their crews in a no win situation with the high possibility to be infected and unable to perform their duties within 2-14 days as well as possibly infecting other crews within that time not to mention their families.Crew scheduling has the same software and better than crews do to check aircraft loads.  Our partners know what their aircraft loads are.  Just two weeks ago a similar situation presented itself and our partner replaced the same type aircraft with a much larger aircraft] in order to enable social distancing and passenger comfort as well as crew safety.  We have multiple aircraft sitting unused and deteriorating on the runways and taxiways of all of our hubs.  There is no excuse for allowing this situation.  We were a valid and available crew; aircraft need to fly in order to avoid future maintenance issues and there are aircraft not being used.  At a minimum someone should set up some crew only flights for transporting commuting and deadheading crews; so we can reduce our exposure. They could be shared between all airline companies.  At the same time or in addition more aircraft should be utilized as passengers should not be forced to sit next to each other and violate CDC guidelines.  Our partners could start enabling us to fly; but instead had canceled several flights (not for crew availability or aircraft) during the day.  Just offering some suggestions as to how we can do this better and not put our aircrews nor our passengers in jeopardy.  Fortunately; I had other options; most others do not.




Synopsis: Air carrier Captain reported being scheduled a flight at full passenger capacity and was concerned about social distancing and exposure to COVID-19.