I noticed a slight variation on the mask announcement on my United flight last night: passengers are now reminded they can only “briefly” remove their mask to eat or drink while onboard. Say goodbye to a long cup of coffee onboard as United Airlines closes a mask loophole.
United Airlines Closes Mask Loophole
The exception language to the mask announcement has been modified slightly to stress that face coverings can only briefly be removed to eat or drink:
“While you can remove your face covering briefly to eat or drink, you must immediately put it back on afterward.”
Previously, passengers were simply told they need not wear masks while eating or drinking.
A United spokesperson confirms:
“The vast majority of our customers are complying with the face covering policy. This is just one more step toward ensuring customer and crew safety by allowing customers who are eating and drinking to remove their face masks — but they need to immediately put it back on when they’re done.”
Indeed, in more than a dozen United flights over the last couple months I have not noticed anyone defy the mask policy.
CONCLUSION
Masks are part of a “Swiss cheese” approach to protection. Any one thing may have holes, but combined with other precautionary measures it stacks up to create the safest environment possible (which isn’t safe, just safer). Ultimately, I’m just thankful for the privilege to be flying again and will comply with all reasonable safety measures in order to continue to do so.
image: United Airlines
I was on a flight from LAX to ORD two weeks ago and some ass (who I’m certain thought he was being very clever) proceeded to open a bag of sunflower seeds and eat them ONE BY ONE the ENTIRE 3 1/2 hour flight…. with his mask down around his chin of course.
I thoroughly applaud this new action and how every other airline follows suit!
When the rules are ridiculous, it forces folks to follow the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. Sunflower seeds are a great idea. I’ll buy one of those lolipops that take 2 hours to eat for my next flight. Or maybe some chewing gum.
How are the rules ridiculous?
Already, data of superspreaders in airplanes – in business class no less. So, if someone wants to be tracked down as the vector, which is specifically easier on a flight due to manifests, and pay for the damages they do to someone who gets sick, they can go for it. Think of it as being similar to being drunk and causing a car accident.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11127369/seven-brits-positive-vietnam-flight-super-spreader-fashion-shows/
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Forget my patronage on UA. And flying is not a “privilege ‘. I do not need to be barked at by the mask master general. Stinks
If the other airlines follow, will you not fly?
I don’t understand why it’s so damn hard to wear a mask to protect each other.
It’s hard when you are a complete asshole. Not complicated.
Sad but true. Personal responsibility in this context means that you are personally responsible for other people’s lives and must act accordingly in a responsible fashion. You can tell who cares about human life by who wears a mask. I wish it weren’t so but under current circumstances that’s how things are.
The mask is a joke, pretending to keep you from the virus. While you manage to put it on or off you actually touch your face more often than before.
JJ, as Matthew pointed out above, masks aren’t even a main, proven-beyond-doubt-effective measure of prevention. I’ve seen the Japanese media report many cases of religious mask wearers getting covid anyway, including a bullet train attendant who pushes carts around with passengers pretty much ALL masked up.
It’s emotional labor for the most part. Nobody cares about all the details that scientifically would render a mask useless, so long as you wear one. Touch it every 30 seconds? Fine. Taking it off and hanging it on your handbag or the indicator stalk in your car (true story)? Fine.
Taking it off to eat and drink should not be allowed, period, if masks were so effective. So someone’s arbitrarily telling us to believe in science up to a point, and stopping when the scientific truth is inconvenient.
We’ve arrived in an era where we can finally recognize free emotional labor as not okay. The honest truth of society is: Nobody can be, or should be, obliged to protect anyone else.
If I want to help you, be nice to you, hold the door for you, that’s mine to offer. If I can’t for WHATEVER reason, you don’t get to ask why (perhaps because poop is coming out my bum…). If I don’t want to, you can’t come up to me and say “why’s it so hard for us to hold the door open for each other?” You can’t insist on it from me, that’s called… I’ll let you sift through the idiom dictionary.
And my biggest issue is this. It’s not okay when “protecting each other” is 90% an euphemism used by corporate giants to keep operating when scientifically speaking, they really should NOT. It’s also not okay for them to require masks in order to minimize their investment in protective equipment.
It’s been a very “pleasant” 6 months watching every industry institute large-scale verbal diarrhea to try and establish they have the right to open as usual. I’m sure it’s mentioned, like the dog ear snapchat/tiktok filters, somewhere in the Bible as a sign of apocalypse.
But I’m not religious. I’m just prompted to comment because…hey, don’t the 767/777 Polaris’ look like THE PERFECT LAYOUT for socially distanced air travel! Is the Universe pushing us to switch to all business class travel? I wish you, Matthew and everyone well.
I don’t think exercising caution as to not give someone a potentially fatal and highly contagious disease is the same thing as offering to hold a door for someone.
Masks are worn to protect others, not yourself. This has been detailed thousands of times.
Even after the recent slowdown, I see about five to ten covid patients a day and spend about 30 to 45 min in the rooms seeing them. I am actually not that worried about myself after my 1000th encounter with a coughing, proven positive COVID patient.
If you are so confident, please tell me where you are sitting on a plane next time and I will take my mask off and talk in a normal tone for several hours.
JJ- I don’t understand why either. Tonight I watched news of a woman being hauled to jail for refusing to wear a mask at her son’s sports event. Her lame excuse was that she has asthma. So do I and I have worn surgeon-style masks for almost 30 years. When I lived in San Antonio during winter Cedar Season, it was critical to wear a mask when the pollen grain count was sky high. Masks purify the air going into your lungs and remove dust, pollen and mold spores. I used to bring them on business trips when staying in southern hotels with mold in the room air conditioners and I bring them on pleasure trips around the world. Why people have a fit over being told to wear a mask, especially in an air conditioned space like a plane, is unreal. I understand why masks were downplayed early on as I witnessed the toilet paper and disinfectant runs where people were using pickup trucks to empty store inventories (most likely in the hopes to resell items at a profit). Had a strong recommendation to use masks gone out, there would quickly be no masks available in any store and a few weeks later plenty of mask scalpers profiteering online. First responders would have been SOL for weeks.
This happened a couple of weeks ago…
https://viewfromthewing.com/man-uses-can-of-pringles-chips-to-avoid-mask-requirement-on-four-hour-flight/
I’ve gone months without having any mask issues, then the past few days have had dozens of customers refusing to wear them over the course of several different flights. Personally, I think masks are more likely to spread covid than prevent it, but I’m being paid to work by an airline that requires the use of masks and requires every single customer to acknowledge that they understand that policy and agree to abide by it before getting on the plane. If you don’t intend to wear a mask then don’t lie about it by agreeing to wear one when you book and check in for your flight. Have a little honor.
I’ve lost patience with the lollipop eaters and those who can make a tiny bag of pretzels last three hours. If you can’t follow the guidelines you agreed to, don’t fly. And I’m trying really, really hard to just concentrate on the 98% who do behave appropriately, but mostly, I just don’t want to go to work and have to keep dealing with the 1% who won’t wear a mask and the other 1% in their triple masks, face shields, gloves and hazmat suits who become hysterical every time someone clears their throat.
Just do away with masks and everything is back to normal. People have gone crazy about masks!!!!
Airline coffee is made with water from tanks so it’s not clear why anyone would order it. And then it stays hot for maybe 15 minutes tops so not really time to linger. Makes no sense