Jet2 says ‘no more face masks’ – will other UK airlines follow?

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• flyforfun says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:15

  Mask wearing on planes is all about risk minimisation. The more people that wear them the less risk you have of catching or spreading anything. I know this becomes moot when everyone is eating or drinking, but it’s all about reducing risk. And it’s not just to the passenger, but the people they may be visiting that they infect that could be at bigger risk.

  I had an issue at the start with masks, but then found a copper mask brand that had ear band toggles and sat off the face that was very comfortable. I’ve worn it for about 4 hours so far and practicing for 28 hours enroute to Australia next month.

  • Chris Baker says:

    2 Mar2 March 10:58

    If you are travelling with Etihad to and from Australia, especially in Business you may find that based on my return journey in early February, over 50% of passengers dispence with their masks for the vast majority of the journey and some for all of it. Cabin crew do not enforce although they are very keen on seat belts.

• Arch says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:43

  Enforcing someone to wear a mask at all is against international law – we a re all exempt anyway from a ridiculous and pointless policy regarding something not proven anywhere to be effective. The sooner more airlines adopt this, the sooner a lot of us will get back to flying. If others want to continue wearing a mask, let them, but don’t make their opinion impact my rights.

  Furthermore, in the UK, the law is that you needn’t provide proof of exemption (very difficult to get since not generally provided) and it is illegal to request proof. Therefore while a progressive and good idea to drop masks from Jet2, they are breaking the law (though even the govt is breaking many laws with all this nonsense, what value is any law these days?) to enforce the requirement of exemption proof.

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:

    2 Mar2 March 10:18

    Specifically, which international law?

    • Chad says:

      2 Mar2 March 10:31

      The international law of Twitter keyboard warriors.

    • Blenz101 says:

      2 Mar2 March 10:37

      The same international law that applies to counties rather than individuals?

      Presumably the suggestion is you could try and take Jet2 to The Hague if they refuse you boarding for not complying with their conditions of carriage and the domestic law of the country to which you are attempting to enter on their service.

  • ryaneberry says:

    2 Mar2 March 11:07

    Easiest way is to print off a mask exemption form and get it signed by a “doctor”, the reaction of the flight attendants was priceless!

  • Jack says:

    2 Mar2 March 13:28

    Please tell me what law they are breaking oh that’s right none . You are not exempt from the policy which isn’t unfair . In other countries you do need to provide proof of exemption and it does state airlines can ask you why

• Gavin454 says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:48

  It will be interesting to see how long the Asian carriers such as JAL, Cathay, Singapore Airlines etc keep compulsory mask rules, given that many countries there still have compulsory mask wearing including outdoors at all times and no signs of removing those rules. I think mask wearing on planes could be semi- permanent or at least for many years to come in some cases (perhaps it could even be a selling point / USP for some eg Japanese airlines in the future)

• paul says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:54

  Local regulations may trump airlines own regulations. For example Austria requires use of FFP2 masks on planes arriving in Austria, Germany may be the same. BA emailed me ahead of my flights last week to remind me of this and there was 100% compliance on my flight to Vienna.

  While in Austria, which is relaxing its rules soon I believe, enforcement was rigorous and efficient from arrival to departure and also the use of Covid passes in every hotel and bar, even hotel guests having breakfast in the hotel were checked daily.

  I also found that the FFP2 mask while more costly was more comfortable and I certainly had no issues with complying. Indeed I felt safer in Austria that I have in the UK in the last 2 years.

  I am delighted the regulations are coming to an end and hope we can all get back to normal very soon. We should not however forget that in the last 7 days over 700 people have died in the UK and the response to Covid in the UK was never normal or proportionate.

  • Gagravarr says:

    2 Mar2 March 10:11

    Austria may require FFP2 masks, but BA don’t enforce it. Flying to Austria a few weeks ago, I’d say nearly half the plane were in surgical or cloth face masks

    As for the covid passes, nearly everywhere wanted to see one, but almost no-one scanned ours. Other than post-immigration and a few museums, everyone else just wanted to glance at a QR code on a screen. Could’ve been your covid pass, could’ve been your wifi password….

• BobT says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:59

  I’ve avoided the low cost airlines as much as possible throughout the pandemic given their passengers’ greater propensity to be self centered with regards to protecting themselves against covid. I don’t want to be flying with people who don’t want to wear a mask whether when traveling or not.

• Guy Incognito says:

  2 Mar2 March 10:10

  I’ve never worn a mask when flying, and found the crews to be very understanding and accommodating. Never had Covid (to the best of my knowledge, I’m not wasting money on doing tests).

  I won’t go anywhere that requires me to wear a mask, it’s as simple as that. I respect the rights of people to wear them if they want, of course. But if they *really* made a difference, then you wouldn’t be allowed to take them off to eat and drink. It’s performance theatre to give the illusion of doing something.

  • Paula says:

    2 Mar2 March 10:22

    How do you manage to avoid wearing a mask? Do you just say you are exempt?

    • Guy Incognito says:

      2 Mar2 March 10:29

      Yes. Email them ahead of time informing them as well so it’s noted on my booking. I do have a letter from a GP (had to pay to get it done privately) but never been asked to show this.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    2 Mar2 March 10:31

    While I respect your opinion I’m not sure you can question their effectiveness purely by the fact you can remove to eat and drink

    It’s pretty hard to do either of those things while wearing a mask!

    • Guy Incognito says:

      2 Mar2 March 10:46

      My point is that if masks were necessary on a plane to stop the virus, you’d have to wear them constantly. And make sure they were medical grade. Neither of which applies.

      In terms of their overall effectiveness, we can see from what happened in England compared to Scotland and Wales that they simply make no difference whatsoever, otherwise we would have expected England to have far higher case rates than both of those countries that kept on with mask mandates while England didn’t.

      Again, happy for people to wear one if they want. But I never have, my kids never have, and the long term impact of them in terms of development (especially in kids) will be incredibly damaging. In the US they have had to change the definition of what constitutes a speech delay in young kids FFS.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        2 Mar2 March 11:14

        My point is that if masks were necessary on a plane to stop the virus, you’d have to wear them constantly.

        You can’t stop it it’s just about risk mitigation. And taking it off while eating / drinking was just a sensible half way house.

        I won’t make my decision on which flight to take based upon mask wearing but at the same time I’ll probably keep getting my G&T topped up.

    • chris_se26 says:

      2 Mar2 March 12:10

      If Covid was really dangerous, wouldn’t it be much easier to say no eating or drinking for the period of the flight?

      Let’s face it, if taking the mask off to enjoy a G&T is within the rules then it hardly has any effect.

• Lady London says:

  2 Mar2 March 10:10

  Which FFP2 masks are people using?

  I’ll be wearing FFP2 as it makes sense. Lesser masks don’t reduce risk as much.

  • Paul says:

    2 Mar2 March 14:57

    Amazon to get them here, if in Europe the shops were full of them and mostly cheaper than here.

• lumma says:

  2 Mar2 March 10:27

  Michael Jackson eating popcorn.gif

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