JetBlue is bringing back fresh food to its premium cabin, and bringing back liquor to its flights starting March 15. American Airlines already brought back food to domestic first class, but its coach cabin remains dry. The airline has said it won’t bring back alcohol until the federal mask mandate is lifted.
American and JetBlue are in a close-knit alliance in the Northeast, and there’s a strong desire to align their products. I’m not sure JetBlue’s move tips American to bring back booze though. There are greater differences in product between the airlines than whether they service alcohol in the main cabin. And JetBlue was already serving beer and wine, while American offered a dry coach cabin.
When Southwest Airlines starting serving drinks again last month, that seemed like it would mean more pressure on American than JetBlue’s move. After all, both airlines are Dallas-based and Southwest is the traditional largest airline in the U.S. domestic market.
While I suppose American could backtrack on its long-standing position of ‘no alcohol until the mask requirement is lifted’ (and would need to do so if masking on planes became permanent) it seems like they can wait this one out. The transportation mask mandate will be gone by summer if it isn’t gone on March 19th.
- The current rule runs through March 18th. It seems like it should be extended soon if it’s going to be! But it’s been extended with as little as 11 days’ notice in the past.
- CDC guidance that no longer recommends masking indoors for over 70% of the United States makes it hard to argue for continued mandatory masking on planes which benefit from HEPA air filtration and downward airflow. Masks were not required at the State of the Union (though Covid testing was).
- The administration needs to declare victory on the virus as it heads into the midterm elections, with control of both the House and Senate at stake. They can’t be the party hanging onto restrictions, where voters have to cast a ballot against them to lift restrictions.
I’ve been betting the mask mandate gets extending once more, for two months, but that’s never been a strong conviction. It seems equally likely the mandate could lapse. Indeed, the Biden administration is considering allowing this.
The administration has been concerned about appearing to declare victory too early and be proven wrong – when the right policy approach would be to require masks when warranted, and not to require them when conditions do not require it.
When mask rules were introduced (by airlines, not government) they made sense. Even if you didn’t like wearing a mask, it helped that everyone around you was wearing one. In 2020 it was important to delay infections where possible, and the benefit wasn’t just protecting hospital capacity it was delaying to the point where we had vaccines and treatments available.
We are not now overwhelming hospitals, and we have medical advances. And cloth masks that meet the requirement don’t do that much anyway, especially against Omicron. Now.. get your booster, wear an N95 if you want, manage your risk appropriately. A federal transportation mask mandate – imposed because the government could claim the authority, rather than because it represented the greatest risk area – simply doesn’t make sense at this point.
It is hard to say, they’re having internal discussions, which to my mind means being slow and conservative. So I’m guessing one more extension in an “abundance of caution,” to use a phrase my wife hates. Certainly unless something drastically changes there will be increasing pressure to be done with this. I wish the overseas testing for airline passengers to return would go away too. Land and sea travel is excluded, which makes any protection rationale pointless. Overall it has been as useful as building a dam across a dead flat lake. And now it is across a flat lake that is drying up. Maybe that will be part of the package of changes. For better or worse, with attention now on other things the short attention span of the American public means this topic is becoming “quaint.”
Depends. How are Fauci’s pharmaceutical holdings performing?
What’s your read on when/if the 24-hour covid test to enter US from international flight might be lifted?
$4/gallon gasoline, plummeting poll numbers, runaway inflation and repeated foreign policy disasters have pushed covid to the back burner. getting rid of any vestiges of government covid control as US truckers head toward DC is the only logical thing that should take place.
Nobody won anything w/ covid. Viruses run their course. Covid 19 took longer than most viruses but it is now a national non-issue in light of the preventatives and treatments that are available.
Mental health and addiction issues are far larger national emergencies
Too many scared bunnies want to hold onto their woobies (masks) as long as possible.
Time for the 1 day return test to either go easy or ho back to 3 days, minimum.
@Tim Dunn – There have been 3 instances of when a trucker convoy was supposed to be here in DC. No more than 3 or 4 trucks showed up. Also, it’s not like they could add anymore gridlock to the DMV area anyways lol
I really do not care either way with wearing a mask on a plane, I would rather see the US drop Covid testing on international flights. It is cumbersome and sometimes expensive.
@Patti – agreed, and while I want the mask mandate gone, if I had to choose between the two, I’d vote for eliminating testing. Masks are an annoyance but getting stuck overseas for a positive test is not only disruptive but an additional cost.
Gary – what’s your prediction on the testing requirement going away?
The Vaccine Theatre is OVER. The Dems are running for the hills. Gotta love how all the mask mandate science changed so suddenly within a week of FJB’s State of the Union. You poor progressive snowflakes, how will you possibly survive on Mar 19 when others dare fly without their useless cloth chin diapers?
Europe, Canada and other countries already have dropped testing and quarantine requirements. The US will be late as usual to apply common sense and fall in line.
“Covid 19 took longer than most viruses…”
That’s because politics demanded it. Once they got the fraud up and running, it was difficult to relinquish their power.
I boarded a Princess cruise ship out of Fort Lauderdale three days ago. Masks no longer required (this is the first cruise since sailing resumed that masks are not required). Did you require a rapid test within two-days of departure.
The mask mandate and the <24-hours before departure testing for flights to the U.S. BOTH need to go.
At this point, how is a flight from abroad suddenly a bigger risk than a domestic flight?
I think its going to expire, and communications about it are purposefully limited in order to prevent noncompliance in the 15 remaining days of the mandate. If you told everyone that its going to expire, the people who have had enough will stop complying today and not wait until the 18th. And then someone will be disobedient (hopefully not violent) on a plane when they go viral by a power-tripping flight attendant and jerry springer general public.
What would you be willing to do to save the lives of 100,000 fellow citizens you don’t even know and there is a remote chance that one of the lives saved could be yours or a loved ones? The answer for many people seems to be “pretty much not a damn thing if it interferes with my right to do whatever I feel like doing.” The imposition of wearing a mask on an airplane or taking a Covid test before an international flight is intolerable for those interested only in their personal freedom and comfort.
While the 100,000 lives figure is purely arbitrary, doing away with the mask requirement on planes and preflight Covid testing comes with a cost in additional pain and suffering and preventable deaths. In previous posts, Gary identified several instances of Covid spread on planes equipped with operating HEPA filters. My question is hypothetical, but there are real-world consequences to eliminating Covid precautions. Before people make decisions about masks and other measures that limit spread, they should know or have the best approximation of what those consequences will be. Only then can we make rational decisions in accordance with our personal views of morality.
In other words, please state in the comments how many you are willing to kill or make severely ill for the convenience of not wearing a mask. Is it one, 100, 1,000, more, or maybe it just doesn’t matter. It is an interesting question we should be prepared to answer and accept responsibility for. Personally, a mask on a plane is only a very, very minor inconvenience especially with a KN95 mask that fits over the ears rather than a N95 mask with straps that go behind the head.
The mandate should be amended to apply only during boarding and deplaning. Basically when the engines are not running.
@john – willing to sacrifice an unlimited number of unvaccinated people so those of us who did the right thing and got vaccinated can get back to normal.
Side observation – Our local mask mandate ended on Monday. I’ve been in several grocery stores in the past few days, and it’s surprising to see how many people are still wearing masks. Not KN95s, just the ordinary blue masks or their designer cloth ones. The ones that do nothing to protect you, the wearer, from anything. But travel a few miles to surrounding counties and they haven’t been wearing them for months. It’s theater, and some people don’t know how to give it up.
FWIW, they also published our full pandemic stats on vaccines and getting COVID and dying. If you’re vaxxed (or have natural immunity), your odds of dying from this are really, really low, and have been since the vaccines came out. (It’s mainly the very old with co-morbidities, not healthy people who are at risk.) If you don’t want a vax, that’s your problem, not mine, but if you’re vaxxed, this has been over for a very long time.
Hey C_M. No unvaxxed have a problem now unless they’re woefully unhealthy to begin with. We’ve received natural immunity and those silly shots protected virtually no one from Omi strain anyway. Only two types of people now. Those with natural immunity and those that will soon have it. Ya’ll gonna catch it, might as well catch the strain with almost no serious deaths (comorbidy notwithstanding). Covid Cultists – WAKE UP. IT’S OVER. END THE VACCINE THEATRE.
@Ryan…Yes, just like in a restaurant where the virus is only deadly while you’re standing up. Sorry, but this only thing has been a sham from day one and if you haven’t figured it out yet, there appears little chance you ever will.
“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” Mark Twain.
@James – And you would be wrong. The vaccines help everyone, both healthy and unhealthy, avoid death. The death rate for the unvaxxed is MUCH high than the vaxxed, even in the healthy. And you have no way to predict if you’re going to be one of the unlucky ones. It’s still a low chance if you’re unvaxxed, but the risk is there, like it or not. You want to take a chance via natural immunity (as in you’re getting immunized via a natural case, in which case you’ve got good immunity, not arguing that), go ahead, but the risks of the vaccines are way lower than your additional risk, even as a healthy person, in getting any form of COVID. Your choice, and you’re welcome to take it, but don’t tell me it’s a wise choice. Vaccine avoidance, at least the first dose, for adults, is as silly as still wearing a mask unless you know you’ve already had a natural case. Same thing, different side of the coin.
@ James N – boarding and deplaning is when people are in closest proximity to each other. The air is still circulating, but people are not close to being distanced.
We’ll continue to wear masks during those parts of a flight, but will happily unmask during the rest. Frankly, it’s what I’ve been doing on Qatar since I began flying again.
@Breathe Free
Exactly!
@john
Please, enough with the theatrics. A cousin of mine actually works for the pharmaceutical industry in a lab making covid vaccines. The masks they want us to wear on an airplane literally are ineffective. He wears a full face, filtered mask that’s literally DOD compliant. It will work. The cloth masks pretty much do not. As an aside, he was more than a little miffed when AA (following government rules) made him take off the DOD level mask and put on a cloth mask during his last flight. Yep. Remove the effective mask and put on the ineffective one. That’s your mask mandate in action for you!
Sorry, C_M, but you need to catch up to reality. There is no substantial evidence to support anything you wrote. The experimental gene therapies were an abject failure and will, in the end, cause more death and medical problems than any virus. Society would have been much better off if they were never created.
“…are in closest proximity…” A difference without a distinction. We spend 4-5 hours sitting 16-18 inches away from the person next to us, but when I’m 12 inches away from someone while entering or exiting the plane, now we have a problem. It’s difficult to imagine the mental gymnastics required to accept that premise.
@James – I’ve got an in on bulk tin foil. I’d be happy to share my source if you Western Union me a couple thou.
@C_M… Perfect, the Ad Hominem, the fallback position for those individuals unable to present a valid argument. A significant and noticeable challenge for the bulk of society.
@James N – reasonable point for economy pax, but maybe I’m biased to think in terms of F/J pax.
“”There is no substantial evidence to support anything you wrote. The experimental gene therapies were an abject failure and will, in the end, cause more death and medical problems than any virus. Society would have been much better off if they were never created.”
@James N – Speaking of no argument, you’ve got no evidence for this statement from any valid source that I know of, and I’m aware of plenty of the crankier ideas.
I wait impatiently for the mask mandate on airplanes to end. Since it’s always been about politics, there’s nothing I can do anyway, except work myself up into a nut-case frenzy. I really don’t enjoy that. The bottom line on all this virus BS is that people seem to think a vaccination will benefit anyone and every one. Does nobody ever stop and THINK? It’s a liquid injected into your body that was developed in a tremendous hurry under intense federal pressure. Why does anyone believe that it works? Why is it believed that there will be no long-term side effects? Why are people so gullible? It’s just been a 2-year-plus power play to see if the bureaucrats and politicians could control everybody. So they can, and they did, and I can hardly wait to see what’s next on their agenda. We’ve lost more than two years of our lives.
@Ryan, vaccinations are great but not 100% effective in preventing infections, sickness, hospitalizations and deaths. If the unvaccinated are worth sacrificing, how many vaccinated people would you be willing to kill or make severely ill, if any?
James N
Jimmy boy, when’s the last time your flew on a commercial airplane without a mask? People want to know, not hiding behind you’re constant bs.
@john – “In other words, please state in the comments how many you are willing to kill or make severely ill for the convenience of not wearing a mask.”
I’m willing to sacrifice everybody who wants to keep any restrictions whatsoever.
Whether or not I’ve flown on a plane has no relevance to my position. Your “argument” reveals your ignorance.
@ huey judy, So sorry about the two years of your life spent suffering through the unspeakable horror of wearing a face mask on a plane. The death toll from Covid-19 in America is about 950,000 people and climbing. Many of them were older or not in the best health so I guess some would say that’s their tough luck.
@ James N, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” Great quote and very true, but I think it should be attributed to Donald Trump, Sydney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Vladimir Putin.
There’s a lot of evidence that if Trump won in 2020 (and he didn’t, but thank you for playing), that Democrats would now be touting the same things the MAGA crowd is touting. Recall Harris’ statement that she wasn’t going to trust any vaccine approved by the Trump administration.
James N
My argument has relevance because you’re such a crybaby. Making up shit fool arguments because you don’t have any that work. Lying “Chump” troll. Whaa!
“The death toll from Covid-19 in America is about 950,000 people…”
No, it is not and anyone advancing that fallacy demonstrates that he has been completely hoodwinked by this fraud.
@Rog..thanks for validating my point. Man, that was easy!
Since the vaccinations are extremely effective against serious harm from Covid, and they are now broadly available, I don’t see why we should be required to mask up to protect those who choose not to protect themselves and many of whom never will. It is their decision, misguided as it is, and they suffer the consequences. End the mask mandates – those who still want to wear a mask certainly can choose to wear a quality one anyway. As it exists the mask mandate is clearly only political, since there is no requirement to wear a mask that is actually effective and never has been.
@James N – One could play semantic games distinguishing between “of COVID” and “with COVID”, and I’m sure that someone will eventually tease out the difference, but to deny that there hasn’t been a spate of excess deaths in the US over the past two years from whatever cause is to believe in a massive conspiracy at every level of government, from the presidency to every local coroner’s office and everyone in-between, not to mention the entire medical establishment and other governments and medical establishments around the world.
And yet you claim you don’t wear a tinfoil hat… Must be the Jews.
Tim Dunn It is $6.00 a gallon depending on what liberal state you are in!!! and going up
“…but to deny that there hasn’t been a spate of excess deaths in the US over the past two years…
It depends on what year you’re talking about. We did not have a significant amount of excess deaths in 2020, but lo and behold we did have an increase in 2021. Now, what happened in 2021 that could have caused that increase, because it certainly wasn’t caused by a virus? The experimental gene therapies are starting to take hold. Check out the results from life insurance companies in the last few quarters and those of the funeral industry. Not a good look.
@James N – “545,600–660,200 excess deaths occurred in the United States during January 26, 2020–February 27, 2021” is not significant? And that’s before widespread use of the vaccines.
Your move, Tinfoil.
There was no mask madate for the State of the Union. The politicans have moved on, time to let us move on as well.
Yep, you’re correct, I failed to explain what I meant in my previous post. I’m arguing that the excess deaths in 2020 are largely related to factors other than Covid. And since we know that they’ve lied about the “with” versus “from” narrative, there’s a very good chance excess deaths are caused by the response to the Covid fraud, rather than an actual virus. Also, excess deaths in 2021 were running ahead of 2020 and there’s strong evidence that is related to the experimental gene therapies.
Finally, I’d rather wear a “tinfoil’ hat than the triangle one you seem to be sporting.
“…the right policy approach would be to require masks when warranted, and not to require them when conditions do not require it. When mask rules were introduced (by airlines, not government) they made sense.”
Gary, airplanes have NEVER been spread vectors. The conditions never required them, and therefore they never made sense.
Forcing the general public to wear a “binkie” on their face just so we can make the Howie Mandell’s of the world feel safe is ridiculous. If you are afraid of Covid, wear your rubber duckie space suit when you sleep and never leave your house. Leave the rest of us to go about our business and if we die, hey, less people on the planet for you to worry about.
All y’all can argue all you want . . . but many of us have done the research and now know that the pandemic response was 10% science and 90% fear mongering by media and Pharma. Recall the Y2K fear mongering by media and tech.
“there’s a very good chance excess deaths are caused by the response to the Covid fraud, rather than an actual virus. Also, excess deaths in 2021 were running ahead of 2020 and there’s strong evidence that is related to the experimental gene therapies.”
So when there were no vaccines, or they were just being tested, the excess deaths were caused by the response. Then, in 2021, when vaccines were available, they stopped the response and started killing people with the vaccines. How very convenient for your side, stated with no evidence whatsoever.
serious C_M –
I hate to say it but are you a paid parroter of Fauci? You basically keep repeating everything Team Fauci preaches. Meanwhile – one’s evidence of intelligence ends when they start using the words “tin-foil” in their arguments esp. when one can’t defend their own side with logic..
Besides – given how the media operates nowadays, the difference between conspiracy theory and truth is only about 6 months. You will never admit the last two years has been a big lie for the lefties to take over everyone’s life. Don’t worry though – you’re not the only one giving into the big lie. Even kids still wear masks at school even though the mask mandate is gone. Poor sheep.
On that note – Drop the masks in planes!!!
@James N, you have spouted off a lot of “facts,” but failed to cite a single reference to a reputable source. Reading things on the internet does not equal obtaining your information from a reputable source. So please, enlighten us all about where you are getting your information. Please reference the title of the study, its authors, and where it was published. Thanks.