Airline workers battle mask resistance without federal backup
Few legal ramifications for passengers who ignore health orders
As the man returned from the lavatory with a mask dangling from one ear, a flight attendant asked him to put it on properly.
“Why? Is something going on that I should know about?” the passenger asked, before ripping the mask’s string. “Damn it, I guess I can’t wear it now.”
Other passengers have verbally abused and taunted flight attendants trying to enforce airline mask requirements, treating the potentially lifesaving act as a pandemic game of cat-andmouse. A loophole allowing the removal of masks while consuming food and beverages is a favorite dodge.
The displays of rule-bucking intransigence are described in more than 150 aviation safety reports filed with the federal government since the start of the pandemic and reviewed by the Washington Post. The reports provide an unguarded accounting of bad behavior by airline customers, something executives hit by a steep drop in travel and billions in pandemic-related losses are loath to share themselves.
With millions of passengers ignoring warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to refrain from holiday travel, the reports offer an X-ray into the country’s deeper failures against the coronavirus — and insights into the pitfalls and possibilities facing a new presidential administration.
While the White House under President Donald Trump has, at times, been dismissive or hostile toward masks, President-elect Joe Biden is making a patriotic appeal to “mask up for 100 days,” whatever people’s politics. Biden has said he will sign an order on his first day requiring masks for “interstate travel on planes, trains and buses.”
Experts in psychology and decision-making say hostility toward wearing masks has been fueled by politicization — but also by skewed incentives and inconsistent messaging.
“The reinforcement principles are backward,” said Paul Slovic, who studies the psychology of risk at the University of Oregon.
The usual signs of danger and rewards for following potentially bothersome rules are thrown off by a virus that is spread easily by people who don’t know they have it, Slovic said.
“You get an immediate benefit for not following the guidelines because you get to do what you want to do,” Slovic said. “And you don’t get punished for doing the wrong thing” because it’s not immediately clear who is being harmed.
The “squishiness of the requirement” to wear masks on planes also undermines the message that they are critical for public health, Slovic said.
Applying mask rules also worsens the already strained position of flight attendants, who are front-line enforcers even as they keep their usual safety responsibilities, experts said.
“Flight attendants are dealing with mask compliance issues on every single flight they work right now,” said Taylor Garland, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, noting that those efforts range from friendly reminders to facing passengers “actively challenging the flight attendants’ authority.”
The Department of Transportation in October rejected a petition to require masks on airplanes, subways and other forms of transportation, with Secretary Elaine Chao’s general counsel saying the department “embraces the notion that there should be no more regulations than necessary.”