TSA has issued $640K in mask violations

Over the past six months, the Transportation Security Administration ramped up civil citations to passengers, mostly aboard airplanes, who refused to comply with mask mandates, slapping them with more than $640,000 in proposed fines, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.

It was a stark increase compared with a six-month period from February to September of last year, when the TSA issued more than 2,000 warnings and fined just 10 passengers a total of $2,350, according to a news release in October.

In total, between Feb. 2, 2021, and March 7, 2022, the agency fined 922 people for violating mask mandates and issued 2,709 warnings, the report said.

The wearing of masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus became a cultural flashpoint during the early months of the pandemic and has continued to be polarizing.

The TSA announced March 10 it was extending a federal mask mandate through April 18 that had been set to expire a month earlier. Since it was put into place last year, the requirement that people wear masks at airports and in public transportation settings has been extended four times.

In September, the TSA announced it was increasing the fines for those who refuse to wear masks from $500 to $1,000 for the first instance, and from $1,000 to $3,000 for repeat offenders.

Both the TSA and the Federal Aviation Administration investigate incidents in which people do not comply with mask mandates. The TSA's authority is not limited to air travel, but covers airports and other modes of public transportation. During 2021, the FAA proposed more than $5 million in fines for unruly airplane passengers; most of the incidents were mask related.

R. Carter Langston, a spokesperson for the TSA, said the process for reporting incidents became better understood in the past six months, which is why the citations and penalties increased so significantly.