How Long Will Masks Be Required on Airplanes?

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By Michelle Baran, Afar

After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eased its indoor mask guidance last month, the move immediately sparked questions and debates about whether the federal transportation mask mandate, coming up for renewal on March 18, would and should be eased as well.

On March 10, the TSA announced that it has extended the federal transportation mask mandate one additional month to April 18.

“During that time, CDC will work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor,” TSA said in a statement—hinting at the possibility that the mask restrictions will, in fact, be eased or at least adjusted after April 18.

TSA said the revised framework will be based on COVID-19 community levels, risk of new variants, national data, and the latest science.

“We want to give people a break from things like mask wearing when our levels are low and then have the ability to reach for them again, should things get worse in the future,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a February 25 media briefing addressing the new CDC indoor mask guidance. But, when asked about the transportation mask mandate, she added, “The COVID-19 community levels are intended for communities, they’re not intended for our travel quarters.”

The CDC has released an interactive map that details the “COVID-19 community level” of each county at any given time. Only when counties are at the high level does the CDC recommend that everyone wear a mask in indoor public spaces, regardless of vaccination status.

The CDC provides recommendations on mask wearing, but they are just that, recommendations—ultimately it is up to individual states and jurisdictions to implement masking regulations on the ground as they see fit. And in fact, on March 26, Hawai‘i, the last U.S. state to currently have an indoor mask mandate, will be dropping its indoor mask requirement.

At the federal level, however, there is one area in which masking has been required by federal law: travel and transportation. The travel and transportation mask mandate dates back to January 2021, when the Biden administration and the CDC issued orders making it obligatory to wear masks on airplanes, airports, ships, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and train, bus, and subway stations. (School buses and vans are exempt as of February 25.) U.S. airlines had already been requiring that passengers and crew wear masks since mid-2020.

Read More: When Your Flight Is Canceled, Never Do This, Warns A Travel Expert

What will happen to the airline mask mandate after April 18?

So, what happens after April 18? Will the mask mandate be extended again?

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, says he believes there is a good chance the federal mask mandate will not be renewed after April 18. “At this stage of the pandemic, with a level of immunity in the population and the tools for treatment, masks have lower importance,” Dr. Adalja tells AFAR. “It is important to recognize that individuals can continue to wear masks as their risk tolerance dictates, individual [airlines] can set their own mask policies, and that one-way masking, especially with the high-quality masks available today, works.”

Dr. Adalja isn’t the only public health expert who thinks the federal mask mandate for public transportation might be lifted. Dr. Thomas Russo, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, says that if the number of COVID cases continues to drop along with COVID-related hospitalizations, “I think probably, more likely than not, that mandate will be lifted.”

He says that even if the mandate is not extended in April, several groups of people should consider wearing masks while traveling—even if it’s not required:

Those who are unvaccinated

Those who are immunocompromised

Those who are over 50, have significant underlying health conditions or diseases, and/or are pregnant and have yet to receive a COVID vaccine booster shot

Those who live with anyone who falls into the above categories

“It’s going to shift from mandate to individual choice or responsibility,” predicts Dr. Russo. Be he cautions that, just as we have seen so far with the pandemic, new variants can enter the picture, sometimes with great speed and aggression, which could rapidly change the public health protocols and requirements again.

Read More: Everything You Need to Know About Flying Right Now During Coronavirus

Concerns and controversy over the mask mandate

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), a union that represents flight attendants who work at airlines that include United, Alaska, and Hawaiian, among others, said in a February 25 statement said that some of its members support the mask mandate remaining in place while others do not.

“The airplane is a unique, but controlled environment for everyone’s safety,” the union stated, adding that factors that could contribute to the mandate remaining in place include the fact that “our youngest passengers do not yet have access to the vaccine; safety procedures are typically harmonized around the world; [and] passenger confidence in the safety of air travel is critical.”

Their main concern, however, is that as long as the mask mandate is in place, flight attendants must enforce it and the AFA is asking that the traveling public focus on “backing up flight attendants simply doing our job.” Their plea comes at a time when air rage, often prompted by the federal masking policy, has been on the rise and can put flight attendants and crew in harm’s way.

In its latest report dated March 7, 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that airlines have already reported 814 incidents involving unruly passengers this year, and 535—or 65 percent—are related to face mask issues.

In an effort to combat the problem, this past fall, the U.S. doubled the fine for people who violate the mask-wearing requirement on planes, trains, and other forms of public transit.

First-time offenders now face a potential fine of $500 to $1,000 and second-time offenders could pay $1,000 to $3,000; previously, the fines had started at $250 and went up to $1,500 for repeat offenders.

When the new fines went into place, President Joe Biden rebuked people who have been taking out their anger about the mask requirement on flight crews. “And by the way, show some respect,” Biden said. “The anger you see on television toward flight attendants and others doing their job is wrong. It’s ugly.”

The mask penalties are separate from any civil penalties the FAA can issue for unruly behavior—the FAA can now propose up to $37,000 per violation for unruly passenger cases. (Previously, the maximum civil penalty per violation was $25,000; one incident can result in multiple violations.)

But the mask mandate remains controversial and not everyone is content to just sit back and wait until the mandate expires. In February, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued the Biden Administration over the federal mask mandate for air travel, challenging the constitutionality of the order.

“Biden’s repeated disregard of the individual liberties of Texans is not only disrespectful to the U.S. Constitution, it is also troublesome that any president thinks they can act above the law,” stated Paxton.

As for international travel, President Biden has also made it a requirement that all international arrivals, vaccinated or not, be tested for COVID no more than one calendar day before flying to the United States. And all foreign nationals entering the U.S. must be vaccinated.

Airlines for America, the industry organization that represents the leading U.S. airlines, sent a letter to U.S. health officials in February asking them to drop the requirement for pre-departure testing for vaccinated travelers entering the United States. The plea comes as numerous countries, including destinations throughout Europe, have begun dropping their COVID testing requirements.

See more at Afar

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How Long Will Masks Be Required on Airplanes?

CDC has relaxed its mask recommendations, but masks are still required on airplanes and in airports until at least April 18. What happens after that?

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Concerns and controversy over the mask mandate

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Concerns and controversy over the mask mandate

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