Tag Archives for masks.
Two women were removed from an American Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale to Chicago. You can see them walking away from the gate, with masks covering their mouths but not their noses. They’re escorted by an officer. Despite the presence of law enforcement, one of the women has words with a passenger waiting in the gate area – and it turns into a brawl, with the officer trying to stop the fight by grabbing at the shirt of one of the women.
John Kerry is a former U.S. Senator, former Secretary of State and former Democratic Presidential candidate. He is currently serving as United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.
And he was photographed in American Airlines first class on a Boston – D.C. shuttle flight not wearing a mask in apparent violation of the President’s – and the CDC’s – mask mandate. He wasn’t eating or drinking. He was reading a book.
After the January 6th riots at the U.S. Capitol, the FAA instituted a zero tolerance policy for inflight disturbances including failure to follow airline masking rules. These were temporary rules set to expire March 30, 2021. They have now been extended indefinitely, at least until the end of the mask mandate.
A mask resister live-blogged his experience flying American Airlines to Philadelphia and home to Manchester, New Hampshire. He drank at the airport and mocked other passengers along the way. And while he reports being successful walking through the airport and flying to Philly without a properly-worn mask, he was eventually kicked off his last flight by American for something entirely unrelated to masks – taking a seat in an empty row to promote social distancing.
On a United Airlines flight to Houston on Saturday, rapper DJ Drama filmed a passenger being removed from the aircraft – and was then removed himself.
The aptly-named Drama, née Tyree Simmons, posted video of the removal to Instagram – and also video of the aftermath, where he’s being ejected from first class. The ostensible reason is a mask violation but he appeared to have been asked to wear a mask once, complied, and remained respectful throughout. So the real reason for his ejection is .. subject to speculation.
Make no mistake: nursing your nuts is no longer an excuse to go maskless on board an aircraft. Put your mask back on between bits or sips if it’s going to be more than a couple of seconds.
A woman on board a United Airlines flight to Las Vegas became philosophical about language, claiming she is “wearing a mask” albeit not using it to actually cover her mouth. Other passengers disputed her take on what it means to wear a mask.
Former UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt was kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight on Thursday along with his two year old son who wouldn’t wear a mask.
He wrote on Instagram, “F[…] @southwestair got kicked off because my 2 year old son wouldn’t put his mask over his face. This coward flight attendant hid his bitch a[..] in the bathroom.” He didn’t think it was fair to ask his two year old to mask when the two pilots weren’t wearing one.
Usually it’s fairly cut-and-dried, people don’t dispute the facts or there is a contemporaneous incident with witnesses. Here there doesn’t appear to have been a social media maelstrom, and the family says this came out of the blue. There’s no due process involved. Someone could easily be banned by mistake, maybe a cabin crew member writes down the wrong row number by mistake or the wrong seats (right row, seats across the aisle).
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves is lifting mask mandates in the state and allowing businesses to operate at full capacity starting Wednesday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that capacity restrictions on businesses and mask requirements will be lifted next Wednesday.
The short answer is this means very little for travel including travel to, from, and in states where state and local mask and other requirements are lifting.
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 »
