Facial masks and distance: US airlines have announced new safety rules for passengers

All leading American airlines have announced that from now on they will demand that passengers wear medical masks and that no one will be allowed to board the plane without them. This is stated in the video "Voices of America".

Photo: Shutterstock

True, there are exceptions, for example, for children. Everyone else is allowed to take off their mask in the salon only if necessary - to drink water or eat.

The policy of mandatory face masks during the flight was first announced in the US by jetBlue, and soon several other leading US airlines joined this initiative.

Masks are now mandatory, not only for passengers, but also for crew members. And this is not all; airlines are taking other measures to safely transport passengers during coronavirus times.

“We started with enhanced cleaning and disinfection of the entire aircraft. This procedure kills all viruses on contact, in addition, a few months ago we introduced a new health certification for our passengers and also announced that everyone would be required to wear masks,” says Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle.

With the outbreak of the pandemic, most airlines temporarily canceled flights, and those that continued to fly were half empty. However, recently, either people are tired of isolation, or the crisis began to subside, but more and more photos from crowded planes began to appear, where passengers do not observe social distance or wear masks.

This is how passenger Prince Johnson describes her recent flight: “I felt claustrophobic because there was no free space on the plane. If someone was sick, we would all get infected too.”

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But on the other route, everything was different, Mike Ricci was pleased with everything.

“Wonderful flight, not many people were on the plane, the flight attendants made sure everyone was at a distance from each other. I would fly again,” says Ricci.

Airline representatives, including at SouthWest, say their planes are thoroughly cleaned with an electrostatic disinfectant that kills viruses before flying.

Also, for reasons of contact restrictions between passengers and crew, airlines canceled the sale of snacks and drinks on board. And some airlines stopped selling tickets for middle seats, to ensure greater distance.

Frontier has the option of paying $ 39 per ticket to ensure that the middle seat is definitely empty.

“Over the last month we have been blocking every other row of seats so that passengers sit next to one, other airlines are blocking the middle seats, but they do not guarantee this, so we have introduced a fee to ensure that the middle seat next to you is not occupied,” he says Biffle.

Frontier Airlines will receive from the US budget $ 170 million under the law adopted in March on economic support for businesses in connection with the crisis due to the coronavirus. And this, according to the companies, will help to cover losses caused not only by limited passenger flow, but also by new restrictive measures.

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