[Goose]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.

[Goose]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.