I might be more comfortable in my underwear and barefoot, but I’m not going to subject the other passengers and crew to that. Likewise, I don’t want to subject the passengers and crew to my germs, so I’ll happily wear a mask.
Find a more comfortable mask.
I wonder how the TSA is handling ID checks if everyone is wearing masks.
I suspect a more comfortable mask is less secure.
I had to go to the hospital over the weekend on a completely unrelated matter. There was a patient there they threatened to kick out because she wouldn’t put on her mask.
They gave people masks at the front if they didn’t enter wearing one. Also, they demanded I remove my gloves.
Politely and respectfully, of course.
They hold a tiny mask up to each passenger’s driver’s license photo.
Serious question; can you recommend one that is widely available that is more comfortable and yet is effective?
I sincerely doubt a mask (the type most people are wearing) will keep all your germs away from seatmates on a plane.
When I start flying again, it will be because I’ve stop trying to avoid exposure.
I’m not uncomfortable wearing a mask while running or biking, so I can’t imagine sitting in an airline seat would cause me a lot of problems. They are less comfortable than not wearing a mask, but nothing that I would risk my health over.
Yup, the problem with makeshift masks is that we really have no reliable data on how effective they are. The argument that they “can’t hurt” applies only if people are strictly continuing to observe all the same social distancing measures that we know do work, even when wearing a makeshift mask. But that is clearly is not happening. Numerous times in the past few weeks I’ve asked store employees to main separation from me, with the response “but I’m wearing a mask”.
Mandating masks on flights may be fine, provided the airlines are specifying types of mask that we know are actually effective, and that passengers can obtain. But if JetBlue’s policy is to allow any makeshift mask, their policy may do more harm than good, if it makes people feel safer flying when they really are not.
And I doubt forcing people to remove their shoes is protecting us from terrorism in the air.
You actually are asked to remove your mask while the agent verifies your identity against your ID. You may then put your mask back on.
It’s the agents that are taking more risks. You don’t wear the mask to protect yourself. You wear it to protect others from you.
He’s not wrong, though. All pressurized airplanes have an outflow valve at the back of the cabin. Air is constantly exiting the cabin through this valve. And as I understand it it’s not uncommon for a little air to leak out around the doors. The remedy for this is to close the outflow valve a bit to compensate. (Although I don’t really work in the aviation field; that’s just something I picked up from aviation message boards). Airplanes aren’t completely airtight vessels like most people assume.
I’ve received an email from Delta talking about how everyone will have to wear masks, and that passengers will be seated distanced from each other - something like no more than one passenger per row, although I’m not sure if we’ll be every other row then or what. I haven’t gotten any such emails from Alaskan Airlines, but I’m not sure what capacity they’d be looking at, anyway.
Airplanes are kept at a certain pressure by allowing air in and out at relatively constant rates. Of course they can’t be SUPER leaky — if they were, the pressure inside couldn’t be kept higher than the pressure outside — but they are leakier than most people assume.
ETA: What Wildabeast said. 
The local news last night had a picture taken on a United flight from New York to San Francisco with every seat filled. People were wearing masks at least. At least some of the people were coming back from helping with the crisis.
Does the rule of masks on all the time mean no eating and drinking ever? Empty middle seat is hardly social distancing.
Airline flights are mostly empty today not because of restrictions but because people don’t want to risk it. I don’t think even the airlines think everyone is coming back. Good for health, bad for their bottom line.
I’ve gotten similar emails from Lufthansa and United, if memory serves. I didn’t pay much attention to them because I can’t really conceive of anything that would get me on a plane for the foreseeable future (or until we have an effective vaccine or I achieve immunity in some other dependable way, God forbid).
The only person I know who has gotten on a plane on purpose since the shelter in place order here was a childhood friend, to go to his father’s funeral (death not from COVID-19, from nice boring cancer). Even then I don’t think anyone would have blamed him for skipping it under the circumstances.
I’d look upon that as a plus, personally - though it would make longer-haul flights difficult since you kind of need to eat / drink on occasion.
Though they might leverage this as a cost-savings benefit, since they wouldn’t have to serve even half-cans of diluted soda.
Mine made sense - I’m flying with Delta mid-late June. I think most of the airlines I’ve looked at are saying they’re taking those precautions for sure till the end of May, but I don’t doubt they’ll be extended. I’m kinda hoping they still are through the summer, just to help people stay at least a *little *safer. I guess we’ll see how things turn out.
Sorry to hear about your friend’s dad 
That’s awful.
Just a guess, but I think this picture goes with this story. The details are the same. The picture shows a full plane. UA says it was 85% full.
United Airlines offered to give the doctors and nurses who volunteered to go NY to help in the hospitals with Covid-19 free flights back to the west coast. The doctor who took the picture says that the airline sent an email that they would blocking off the middle seats to give everyone room for social distancing. When he got on the plane, he realized that they weren’t going to be doing that. He had given an interview to a news station before the flight that he was more worried about catching Covid-19 from the flight home than getting it from the hospital ward. He said that his fears were justified.
So if this picture matches this story, many of the people on that flight didn’t choose to travel in a full plane. Many of them were medical professionals who were given a free flight home, only to realize that there would be hazardous conditions on the flight.