How long will masks be required on planes? Flight attendants say mandate should be extended
states lifting mask mandates and COVID-19 vaccination rates on the rise, travelers are starting to ask when they will be able to fly without wearing a mask.
It shouldn’t be anytime soon, flight attendants say.
The federal mask mandate on planes and in airports, signed by President Joe Biden in January and due to expire May 11, should be extended through September, the president of the largest flight attendants union said during a U.S. Senate subcommittee meeting Wednesday.
“We are still in the middle of the crisis,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said during a meeting of the Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee. “I do think it’s important that we recognize that and stay the course here with the mask policies, with all of our diligence (and) with the efforts to get the vaccine out to everyone.”
required passengers to wear masks for nearly a year and repeatedly asked for a federal mask mandate to help them enforce it on flights. The efforts were unsuccessful until Biden took office.a big mistake.
“The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that, in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask, forget it,” Biden said. “It still matters.”
reports on travel safety during COVID-19, said coronavirus variants make it difficult to determine when masks will no longer be needed.
So, too, does the lack of sufficient data on whether people who have been vaccinated can become infected or transmit the virus.
“So right now our recommendation from the science community is to continue wearing a mask,” he said.
Fact check: CDC still recommends masks after vaccine
Marcus said there is growing evidence that vaccinated people gathering outside have a low risk of transmission so taking masks off is becoming an option there.
Not so indoors, including airplanes and airports, he said.
“I think we probably both agree we’d like to take our masks off, but let’s wait to do it until this crisis is in the rearview mirror,” Marcus told Wicker.
Wicker’s response: “Well, we’re going to wait to do it until the government changes the requirement. It does seem though, sometime in the future; this thing needs to end.”
