On the day that the federal mask mandate was vacated by a district court, many employees were understandably excited. There were several inflight announcements that people could remove their masks, as the requirement was lifted by airlines.
Crew were, in many cases, elated.
- Flight attendants had to wear masks far more often than passengers, since they fly far more often. Even pilots, who didn’t have to mask in the airport, have to wear them more.
- And flight attendants had to enforce the mask mandate, leading to numerous confrontations, delays, and even fights (with bodily injury)
It probably would have been a good idea for airlines not to change their rules midflight, for flights already in the air. Though the federal requirement was set aside, each airline still had to decide what to do for themselves.
If you want to still wear a mask you can. And though everyone around you may not be wearing one, their cloth and even paper masks did little to protect you. Some European airlines required higher quality masks. No U.S. airline did.
Now you can actually protect yourself better than before and potentially with greater comfort. You can wear a P100 mask with a valve and this will be both more protective and more comfortable for many than an N95 with no valve. When the mask requirement was in effect no valves were permitted since exhaling through them failed to protect other passengers from the wearer.
One passenger shares what happened when they complained to American Airlines about how the crew handled the rule change. They say passengers ‘were told to take off their masks.’
On Apr 18th @AmericanAir actually had anti mask employees tell passengers to remove their masks. I didn't want to be stranded or on an anti mask plane. Here's the response I got, a coupon for a ticket. Remove your unwanted miles from my account. pic.twitter.com/hnl2cXrPx2
— Bridger Anderson (@BridgerAnderso7) May 1, 2022
It’s possible that crew told passengers they could take off their masks. It’s also possible crew excitedly declared ‘take off your masks.’ It’s highly unlikely crew ordered passengers to take off their masks, telling them they were no longer allowed to wear one.
Regardless American Airlines gave them miles as compensation. The passenger insisted on having the miles removed from their account.
We'll send a message to our team requesting that they remove them for your account. Thanks for your candid feedback.
— americanair (@AmericanAir) May 1, 2022
Oprah, for her part, thinks it was ‘too soon’ to lift the mask mandate, though like other proponents of continued mandatory masking doesn’t lay out what criteria would be needed for a shift.
People can protect themselves from bad outcomes through vaccines and boosting which remain remarkably protective against bad outcomes considering the government hasn’t allowed a shift away from targeting the ancestral Wuhan strain of the virus. Upon catching the virus people can take Paxlovid to reduce viral replication and avoid hospitalization. And people can continue to mask.
Perfect, another case of “virtue signaling”. The competitive “sport” of the 21st century.
Hah the mask Karen’s are always funny.
It’s always women who ooze entitlement. Probably since they are raised that way.
She had Biden voter written all over her. Probably fat as well.
And people can continue to believe in the shaman who dances around praying for the sun to rise, precisely at sunrise.
@koggerj
incel much?
@john
I’m sure you are.
Bridger Anderson has 4 Twitter followers. Who cares what he/she says or thinks? The twitter bio says “veteran physicist engineer” . . . . “Angry Grandpa?” Don’t like American Airlines?? Perfect solution: stop flying American!
Correction: Bridger Anderson has ZERO (0) followers. He is following 4 persons. His tweet is a 5-person discussion, out of millions. Scratching my head over how the internet picked up a tweet from a total nobody and made it wannabe-viral ??
@ Gary — Apparently people haven’t started behaving any better on here.
@Gene – unfortunately I can’t remember if they EVER did.
heard @KoggerJ is on a ventilator. AA – deposit miles into his account post haste. He needs to go visit Agent Orange in FL.
Again, just funny all these polls say 70% support the mask mandat but I’ve flown on a dozen flights through airports everywhere except the NE and I can tell it is under 10%. It doesn’t matter where. I was in Seattle a few days ago, not many masks in the airport. So where is the 70%???
@ Your daddy says . . . I agree. The 70% support for mask mandate has always been CDC propaganda. Washington DC and NYC are in a bubble and believe their virtual world reflects America. They have fallen into believing their often repeated opinions are “facts”.
I will continue to wear a mask while flying because now I feel like it is super gross to be close to so many people for so long, but for some Karen to blame an entire airline for one situation that seems to have been miscommunicated or was confusing is ridiculous.
“It’s possible that crew told passengers they could take off their masks. It’s also possible crew excitedly declared ‘take off your masks.’ It’s highly unlikely crew ordered passengers to take off their masks, telling them they were no longer allowed to wear one.”
Wonder when the last time Gary took a flight was. I guess he has no idea how it works on an airline. Particularly American Airlines.
@Your daddy…This might explain it.
Can definitely confirm about the elated crews on the day it was struck down. The decision was announced several hours before I flew HNL->SLC->ATL->BNA. The HNL->SLC and SLC->ATL cabin crews were ecstatic… and a much smaller percentage of the crews and airport employees were wearing a mask than passengers. I’m not anti-mask at all, was wearing mine, and was frankly hoping the mandate would last until I got home, but that was the happiest I’ve seen cabin crews in a long time.
As for the random dude on Twitter… Agreed that I very strongly doubt crews actually ordered him to take off his mask. The “I didn’t want to be on an anti-mask plane” makes it sound like this was just the male version of a Karen who felt he needed to complain to the manager just because everyone else wasn’t doing exactly as he wanted. Glad AA took the miles back out of his account after his temper tantrum.
@James N
Oh, man. So true. The leading question polls and push polls are awful. It is sometimes fun to give them answers other than what they’re looking for and hear their reactions, though.
Ok so the Karen got some free miles and her 5 minutes of fame! Let’s get on with other subjects now. So over the mask issue as are others
Keyboard warriors can’t stand to see anyone wearing a mask. Won’t say a word though face to face. Hold that bitterness inside. lol
No videos of the offense? Yeah, that had about as much of a chance of actually happening as #EmptyShelvesJoe getting 81m votes.
Gary, you mention that people can take Paxlovid when they catch the virus on more than one of your posts. But in reality, this is not an easy drug to obtain. One has to be at high risk to be able to qualify for it. So you are right, high risk people can take it to reduce hospitalizations or death by up to 90% but only a few of us will qualify to get the Rx.
Gary, one exception to your story. UA 41 FCO-EWR May 5, gate agents prior to boarding informed pax only N95 masks allowed to be permitted to board. Saw at least one pax refused entry ( wearing a surgical type) onto plane until another pax provided an N95.
Postscript- as soon as we cleared Italian airspace, announcement made masks could be removed.
LOL, I didn’t think anyone would actually care enough to post an article about my tweet.
So I’ll elaborate.
>It’s also possible crew excitedly declared ‘take off your masks.’
Yes, in fact that’s exactly what happened.
Is that an order? No, but, that appropriately describes the situation.
In addition, prior to boarding, a few people had masks off, for whatever reason, eating/drinking/whatever. When they put them back on, the exact words from an AA employee was “you don’t have to bother putting those back on.”
Is that an order? No. There were some similar instances, but those weren’t orders. The people they were reiterating this to were ones who already heard the announcement.
If I make an agreement with a company, I expect them to follow through. In this case, the mask mandate was supposed to be in place until some later date, as stated by American Airlines. So I bought tickets with that understanding. If there hadn’t been a mandate, I wouldn’t have bought the tickets. To wait until I’m boarding the plane with my family was inappropriate.
The correct thing to do was to contact customers in advance of the policy change and offer me some type of alternative if they didn’t agree. Making the policy change and forcing people to be comply or stranded at the airport is wrong. Really the miles weren’t an appropriate response, and the “funny money” just angered me more.
The money wasn’t the issue, the changing of the rules without giving me any alternative other than to be stranded, that was the issue. Money/miles doesn’t suddenly make that right.
I’ve received a better response from American Airlines and we’ve since come to agreement. I did appreciate their response.