With in-flight and airport mask mandates slated to be lifted in the United States next month, a flight attendants’ union is pushing the Biden administration to extend the requirement until more people are vaccinated.
In a statement, the Association of Flight Attendants-C.W.A. said that the Transportation Security Administration’s plan to lift mask requirements on March 18 would endanger medically vulnerable travelers and passengers under 5, who have not been authorized by federal health authorities to get the vaccine.
“The layered approach to safety and security includes masks,” the union said in a statement on Tuesday.
If the mask mandate is rescinded next month as planned, it would come weeks after local and state authorities lifted mask mandates across the country as new coronavirus cases plummeted. The federal government regulates air travel, however, and so the mask requirements on airplanes have remained in place.
The Biden administration imposed the mask rule on flights a year ago during a brutal rise in cases across the country before vaccines were widely available. Those who did not comply were subjected to fines. Officials extended the mandate twice as deadly waves of the virus continues to wash over the nation.
On Tuesday night, Patricia Mancha, a spokeswoman for the T.S.A., said that the mask mandate was on track to expire on March 18, despite previous extensions. “If there is a change to halt or extend the mask requirement, we will make an announcement,” she said in an email. “As of now, nothing new to share.”
Many flight crews have faced that looming deadline with anxiety.
Disagreements over masks and the refusal of some passengers to wear them led to frequent shouting matches, fights and other problems with unruly passengers during the pandemic. From Jan. 1 to Feb. 15, the Federal Aviation Administration received nearly 400 reports of unruly passengers, including 255 reports of passengers refusing to comply with a federal mandate that they wear masks on planes.
Last month, a man on a Delta Air Lines flight from Dublin to New York who refused to wear his mask pulled down his pants and exposed his buttocks. Nearly two weeks later, an American Airlines flight to London from Miami turned around about an hour into its journey because of a passenger who refused to wear a mask.
Cases like those are why airline executives and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants have been urging the federal authorities to create a federal no-fly list for unruly passengers.
Still, many flight attendants support keeping the mask requirement. “It’s also critical that we maintain passenger confidence in the safety of air travel,” the union, which represents 50,000 flight attendants at 20 airlines, said in its statement.
Last week, the Republican attorney general of Texas sued to strike down the mask mandate on public transportation, including on planes and at airports.
Some airline executives have questioned the efficacy of masks on planes. At a Senate hearing in December, Gary Kelly, the chief executive of Southwest Airlines, said, “The case is very strong that masks don’t add much, if anything, in the air cabin environment.”
A few days later, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, urged travelers to wear face masks at airports and during flights.
