Southwest Plane Is “The Most MAGA Flight I’ve Ever Been On”

by Gary Leff

Howard Altman, the Managing Editor for Military Times, documented his Southwest Airlines flight to DC on Tuesday filled with “Fight For Trump” cheers.

Southwest Airlines for its part takes to twitter to note they have mask policies. Here, on this flight, those weren’t enforced. But Southwest is also in a difficult position.

Prior to departure the airline could have offloaded passengers or even cancelled the flight. Once they’re in the air:

  • Flight attendants can handle one or two passengers not wearing a mask, but clearly hear the maskless outnumber cabin crew. With a ‘maskless mob’ you’d worry about mob mentality.

  • The airline could divert, but they aren’t going to want to, that’s costly and a huge inconvenience to other passengers. It also could have escalated tensions even further.

  • Meeting this flight with only a handful of police wouldn’t be enough to remove everyone unwilling to wear a mask.

Ironically the safest thing to do in this case might be to fly with so many people unmasked. That’s not ideal, and it may not even be right, but standing in the position of the flight crew at the time I’d have a difficult time criticizing their choice in the moment.

And can Southwest Airlines even reasonably ban so many passengers who weren’t scolded for not wearing their masks first? That seems like a reasonable thing to do, but it would take quite a bit of effort to identify them, even from video, since the airline doesn’t have assigned seat lists to match people against.

(HT: Jonathan W.)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. @losingtrader – 2 questions for you.

    1. How much money do you want to bet that your statement is an absolute lie? Put your money where your mouth is.

    2. Were you born stupid or did your mother drop you on your head?

  2. I disagree with this view. For them to not enforce their mask policy could be seen as discriminatory to those for him masks are enforced. Given the demographics of this plane, I think any non-white person would have a case against Southwest.

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