CHICAGO- Delta Air Lines expects traffic to remain depressed in the coming weeks, its chief executive said on Wednesday, and will continue blocking middle seats until vaccines are widespread.

"When the vaccines are out in large numbers we'll certainly be returning those middle seats back to the market, so we'll have a lot of flying seats that we'll actually start putting customers back into in the spring or summer," CEO Ed Bastian said on an interview with CNBC.

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) ((tracy.rucinski@thomsonreuters.com;))