A mother and her 6 children were kicked off a flight from Orlando to Newark on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020, because her 2½-year-old refused to wear a mask. The airline requires all passengers over age 2 to wear masks, with no medical exemptions; JetBlue advises passengers with medical conditions affected by mask-wearing to postpone travel.
When it began to look as though a general passenger uprising was in the offing, the flight crew made everybody get off the plane (see video below), but allowed everyone but the mom and her kids to reboard.
She accused the flight crew of being “bullies” but they only were doing their jobs. Employees don’t determine company policies. The airline defended its policy by saying it conforms with CDC guidelines and passengers are notified via email of face covering rules before flights.
The airline industry, to get people back on planes, tells the public that plane cabins have air quality comparable to hospital operating rooms. It’s recirculated every 3 minutes, side-to-side (not down the aisle), and goes through HEPA filters that remove >99.97% of airborne particles including bacteria and viruses. Engineers and other experts back this up. (For details, see thisfamil article.)
If airline cabin air is so sterile, why do little kids have to wear masks in cabins at all? How can they spread our germs, when they don’t have our huge lungs and bad breath?
Does the science back the airlines policies and are the policies reasonable. Requiring a 2 1/2 year old to wear a mask is just unrealistic. Prior to boarding the child was checked for a fever, ect, and there is no indicatio the airlines employees thought the child or anyone boarding were infected. If the airlines statement about the cleanliness of the air is true that is some pretty clean air. flight time is around 2 1/2 hours so some risk if a passenger has a disease in the long metal tube, but certainly far past the 15 minutes of risk of infection with no mask talking to your neighbor, who should not be flying if infected.
So 2 1/2 year olds read e-mails these days? Yet we only expect a five year old to know their ABCs. I would misbehave too to avoid Aunt Idas blue hair, frizzly bear hugs, and mushy matza balls.