Scott Kirby is the head of the third largest airline in the United States and one of the largest in the world, United Airlines. That is why his opinion about what is happening in the industry carries a lot of weight.
After two years of restrictions on flights as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, the last major rule that remained in place in the United States was the mandatory wearing of masks on airplanes (and all types of public transportation). That was until last Monday, when federal judge Katheryn Kimball Mizelle left the decree in disuse, considering it illegal. Since then, the country's major airlines announced that wearing masks would now be optional and the country's federal transportation administration assured that they would stop enforcing the rule.
Yesterday, the United States Department of Justice confirmed that they will appeal Judge Mizelle's decision seeking to reinstate the mandate after the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) indicated that its recommendation is that the mask should continue to be worn on public transportation given the level of contagion of the virus at this time.
In this context, Kirby indicated that United was already exploring the idea of eliminating the mandatory wearing of masks even before Judge Mizelle's ruling, and that he does not believe that the justice department's appeal will change things.
“I think it is highly unlikely that the mask-wearing mandate will be imposed again in the near future,” the CEO told the national news channel NBC.
For his part, President Joe Biden did not publicly support the appeal, because when asked by the press about whether Americans should continue to wear masks on airplanes, he replied “it's up to them what they want to do.”
At the moment, the airline no longer requires the use of masks on flights within the United States, and for its international flights it changes the rule according to the requirements of each country. The same measure has been taken by other major airlines in the United States such as American Airlines, Delta, Spirit and Frontier.
Most airports and train terminals in the country have also begun to announce that they will not require the use of masks either, since the end of the mandate also affects them.
After the last major wave of infections, at the beginning of the year during the peak of Ómicron, most of the United States began to relax its restrictions on COVID 19, making it unnecessary to wear masks in places such as restaurants and the presentation of vaccination tests, something they asked for in some cities such as New York or Los Angeles.
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