Patchwork of policies causes anxiety for flyers
Precautions sometimes fall short, are unenforced
Tony Scott boarded an American Airlines flight May 25 from Los Angeles to Dallas. It was a trip he felt he had to take despite concerns about the coronavirus. His son, who lives in Texas, was having health problems.
The teen seated next to Scott in business class wasn’t wearing a mask. Scott was surprised because before the flight, he received an email from American reminding him masks were required. He flagged down a flight attendant, who gently reminded the teen of the face-covering rule. She still declined to wear the mask, and the flight attendant told Scott that because she was a minor, the teen was exempt from the requirement.
Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that only children younger than 2 should be exempt, and American’s policy exempts “very young children or anyone with a condition that prevents them from wearing one.” The flight attendant didn’t offer to move Scott to another seat.
Scott, a 53-year-old African American with asthma, was upset. He said he is in a high-risk category for COVID-19 and was shocked by the experience. “I’m very worried about getting coronavirus,” Scott told KHN. “I want to be safe, I don’t want to die, and I want the airline to stop putting people at risk.”
Josh Freed, an American Airlines spokesperson, reiterated the policies on the company’s website but declined discussing Scott’s situation.
Other flyers have echoed Scott’s experience on social media, telling tales of uneven, inconsistent or incorrect COVID-19 policy enforcement on various airlines’ flights.
As consumers consider traveling again, they discover the public health guidelines in place for flying often are a messy patchwork of precautions that lack the teeth to protect passengers. And, so far, federal agencies have been loath to establish and enforce specific safety standards.
Last week – nearly a month after Scott’s flight – American escorted a passenger off a flight after he refused to wear a mask, then banned him from future American flights while the mask rule remains in place. It was the first known incident of stepped-up enforcement of airlines’ updated COVID-19 policies. American now states that if a passenger is not exempt from wearing a face mask and refuses to wear one, they may be denied boarding and future travel on American.
It’s not the only airline to take such action. In mid-June, Airlines for America, the trade group that represents the major U.S. airlines, announced that its members would be “vigorously enforcing” face-covering policies by communicating before the flight and making onboard announcements.
The federal government has continued to leave it up to the airlines to regulate themselves regarding masks and other policies to foster consumer confidence in air travel.
Delta, United, JetBlue and Frontier are boarding passengers from back to front so they don’t have to closely pass one another. Southwest is boarding 10 people at a time, from only one side of the boarding poles. Airlines have also modified food and beverage service. And on June 1, Frontier became the first U.S. airline to start screening passengers for fever before boarding.
Since March, the airline industry has suffered significant losses, with travel down by almost 90% because of stayat-home orders and fears of the pandemic. But as businesses restart operations, it has sent clear signals about its hopes for how travel will proceed amid COVID-19 concerns: Airlines want the leeway to set and manage their own safety requirements while they regain their financial footing.
The National Air Carrier Association, whose members are low-cost airlines such as Frontier, Spirit and Allegiant, opposes any federal regulation to enforce capacity limits on planes or block out middle seats, saying such measures could cause bankruptcy and higher ticket costs. “Things that might work for legacy carriers could put lowcost carriers out of business,” said spokesperson Dan Stohr.
These hands-off approaches draw skeptical responses from advocates who want the Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration to protect public health.
“The position of DOT is the airlines can do whatever they want,” said Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights.org, a consumer organization. “The FAA is supposed to deal with safety, but they have taken the position that they cannot regulate health unless they are directed to do so by the DOT secretary.”
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson wrote in an April letter to the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest pilots union, that the FAA is “not a public health agency.”
And Dickson told a Senate committee last week that the CDC, not the FAA, is the lead agency charged with requiring safety precautions against the spread of the coronavirus.
“Our space is aviation safety, and their space is public health,” he said.
But some Democrats on Capitol Hill are pressing for more regulation. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington and the leadership of key House committees separately sent letters in May to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao asking her to issue uniform guidelines about seating on flights and other aspects of air travel.
Because the federal government provided significant financial assistance to the airline industry in the CARES Act to help it survive the coronavirus era, some argue the government should also set uniform safety standards.