Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition argues that a federal face mask mandate for airlines and airports is crucial to bringing back business travel. He makes two major points.
- Airlines and airports are inconsistent in their enforcement
- Large businesses are concerned about liability for their employees safety (duty of care) and travelers and their families are reluctant to travel.
Mitchell commits one of the most basic fallacies, wanting to change behavior and thinking that declaring a law means everyone immediately does what the law says. Airlines will still be the ones enforcing masks on planes, and compliance has gotten much better.
If you turn an airline rule into a federal mandate, you’ve got to ask what exactly gets mandated? Federal rules are far more subject to lobbying and interests. Any mandate is likely to have far more exceptions, and thus potentially less mask wearing, than what American, United and Southwest have – requiring all two year olds to wear masks, with no medical exceptions. Delta currently allows for medical exceptions with airport virtual consultation with a physician. The government is more likely to make a policy closer to Delta’s – which is more lenient – than one without exceptions.
That’s another fallacy, by the way, to assume that a catchy phrase (‘mask ban’) translates into a policy whose details conform to the outcome you want.
A federal mask rule, replacing mask rules that already exist, won’t materially change the landscape of travel which already entails near-universal mask wearing. There will still be scofflaws, most of whom who won’t be punished, at least without repurposing and substantially growing the Federal Air Marshal service and placing a mask officer on each flight.
And if the concern Mitchell has was really about business liability for travel, as he suggests, then a liability shield would make sense. But the risk of being on a plane just isn’t what’s holding back business travel.
- The plane itself is generally safe, given HEPA air filtration and air that flows down from ceiling to floor. It’s not that Covid-19 can’t spread on a plane, but it’s less likely than most other indoor environments – indeed, it’s less likely to spread on a plane than in an open office.
- Businesses need to be fully back in the office in order for remote workers to travel to headquarters for meetings, or to visit clients in offices.
- Large indoor conferences and meetings still won’t return, and mask mandates on planes won’t change that – lack of business travel has more to do with limitations of activities on the ground that remove the impetus for business travel and fear of what happens in transit.
Oddly Mitchell ends by conceding most business travel isn’t being held back by liability concerns after all, “small and mid-size enterprises represent the vast majority of business travel activities in the U.S., and elsewhere. So, duty-of-care is not as much top-of-mind for them” – but he thinks a mask mandate would make business travelers and their families more comfortable with travel.
And maybe it’s true that the federal government saying people have to do what they’re already doing would make people feel better. But is it true if the government rule is more lax, with more loopholes, than what airlines allow today?
Nonetheless, President-elect Joe Biden wants a nationwide mask mandate but his advisors have concluded he’ll lack the legal authority to impose one but expect him to require masks on all federal property and all interstate transportation, though it’s far from clear that such a move would be permissible by mere executive action. There’s been discussion of the CDC’s quarantine authority, but that seems inapposite. At best the Secretary of Transportation has a broad mandate to provide for ‘safe and efficient’ travel.
I’m not anti-mask, but it’s a laughable to think that a federal mask mandate is somehow going to get people who won’t wear a mask today to wear one.
The number one thing that’s stopping business travel is the lack of conferences and trade shows. A mask mandate isn’t going to bring those back, a vaccine will.
Before we have a mask mandate perhaps we can educate Americans who currently choose to wear masks on how to properly wear them. Less then 50% of people where I live wear masks properly from my observation yet I see 100% percent of people actually wearing masks.. Often it is the nose that is exposed. And when confronted they always claim it is just uncomfortable to wear the mask over their nose all day. Meanwhile these same people in conversation are typically for a national mask mandate.
It started with two weeks to bend the curve. Now its endless mask mandates, a disease that will never end, mandatory vaccinations, and sporadic lockdowns until the end of time. You give the government an inch and they will take a mile. We will never get back the freedoms that we had at the start of this year.
Who cares if some low level 40k a year sales guy gets to fly to Iowa to present a power point….
Nope.
Not gonna fly.
For at least two years.
And then, has to be CRUCIAL.
@Wesley
There is not a mandatory vaccination rule even being discussed. Matter of fact, the Feds are terrified that they will spend $billions on producing and distributing a vaccine that people will not make an effort to get. I can see companies making employees get the vaccine. Probably schools will too. But if your employer says to get vaccinated, you will do it, and you will not have any rights to say no. My employer has already told us so!
Funny, I don’t recall anybody but the US Army requiring me to get any vaccination post grade school. Typhoid can kill you, COVID won’t (99.99x recovery rate). And @Bob, you’re pretty sanctimonious, if your entire career depends on selling stuff to people, your kids don’t eat if you don’t sell. You do get that you’re on a travel blog for people that… uh, travel frequently?
The regular flu vaccine mostly works, and yet 50% of the country gets it, and tens/hundreds of thousands die each year as a result. A vaccine that’s generally been in circulation for decades has an uptake rate that low, and you expect people to run out and give their kids this? I’m not even anti-vaxx, but I like long term studies, not panic driven short cuts. Show me the science, bros, double blind studies, long term impacts on fertility, etc.
The biggest impacts to business travel will not be in airport testing, airport bridges, etc. You have people buying Ryan Air tickets in order to get into the Dublin airport to *get to the pub*. Dodgers fans can’t see a game in LA, but they can fly to Dallas, attend a bunch of games, then fly back to LA after bowling, drinking, and generally acting like a human. Oh, mask mandate will fix that. Business travel will not return until sanity returns. Asian countries had an extra lane for people that had been to Ebola (you know, the thing that actually kills people) impacted countries, and it was seamless.
A federal mask mandate is a terrible idea because it will never go away. The year will be 2034, Covid will be a distant memory, and bureaucrats in some windowless federal office building will be sitting on a proposal to end the mandate. Let airlines decide based on consumer demands.
Why not have a mask officer, i.e. a FAM at least the possibility of a mask officer FAM MOFAM to be on any given flight. Do you think if the citizenry was subject to arrest and fine if not wearing a mask that compliance would increase? Remember right now there is virtually no enforcement. If they made an example out of a few people putting them in jail for the night or at least “booked” at the police station and say a $1,000 to $5,000 fine it might bring up compliance. I don’t think it would yield 100% compliance, but I would be curious how much the tangible consequences would increase compliance; I think it would be a number greater than 0.
Imagine if the gate agent announced besides what they do now that if you don’t wear a mask the plane may divert and you may be detained and fined by local authorities. They often do announce now that you will be “denied boarding” if you do not wear a mask.
@Boston
More government rules, more government goons to enforce them. Always a winning proposition (for the government)!
People catching SARS-CoV-2 on planes is not a problem we should be so worried about. We should be concentrating on testing in places where people are stuck in close proximity for long periods of time with poor ventilation and ramping up deployment of air cleaners. Making all those ventilators was a waste; by the time someone is on a ventilator, he is probably going to die anyway and it turns out it isn’t even a good treatment for COVID-19. If you’re not working in a slaughterhouse or stuck in a nursing home, where the heck are you getting sick? If you are spending time inside a packed bar or restaurant, you are asking for trouble and get what you deserve. Also, being fat is committing slow suicide. Common sense decisions about where to go in public will keep people safe in most instances, even without wearing a mask most of the time. Do not rely on the competence and compliance of your fellow citizens to keep you from getting sick. Masking compliance is a joke. Remember, a median IQ of 100 means that half the population has a two-digit IQ.
They have to make and enforce the mandate for the airport as well as on airplanes and end meal and beverage service.. The only people who should eat or drink during a flight less than 8 hours are people with medical needs like diabetics. A segregated area should be provided with a narrow time limit for the medical exceptions. I won’t fly and most of my friends won’t until this is taken seriously. High skilled workers will change jobs to avoid flying.
Wait, it’s after 11/4, wasn’t there a rule that all mask talk magically disappears once Biden is President-Elect? At least that’s what the Trumpers claimed.
2,000,000 mile flyer on Delta says sorry, not flying with some faulty mask mandate. Glad I’m retired. Still flew to retain Platinum status. Bye Delta. you’re going to miss me!
@ UA-NYC. You failed to read the small print after the headlines. Masks will disappear AFTER Biden is President, not President Elect. C’mon man, get with it!
@ Boston. So you are embracing a Secret Police Agency? You really need to study world history.
Passengers will not return in any meaningful amount until the PERCEPTION of it being of no personal health threat to be on an airplane. Masks DO NOT convey that message and in fact do just the opposite.