A growing number of states are making plans to loosen or lift their face mask mandates. However, airlines will have to wait a while longer.
March 18th is the big day for the airline industry. That's when President Biden’s mask mandate is supposed to expire. Dr. Anthony Fauci and members of the CDC, though, are likely to advise Biden to extend it. Aviation analyst Jay Ratliff says behind closed doors, airline CEOs want an end to the mandate. A record number of unruly passengers acted up on flights in 2021.
“We’ve had 323 incidents of unruly passengers this year already. 5,981 last year, and most of those are mask related. So, the thought is once we can finally get past that some of these situations will start to die down,” Ratliff said.
The Biden administration has another option. They could drop the mandate and instead require a proof of vaccination to fly domestically. However, Ratliff believes there would be pushback against any new restrictions. Many in industry believe the less restrictions, the better.
“We had a recent [incident] here in Omaha where I think three or four people got thrown off because of a mask argument, with alcohol involved,” he explained. “That inconvenienced that plane for two and a half hours. People are sick of the masks.”
That leads to the poll question today.