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Experts warn facemasks are here to stay.
Experts have warned that airline passengers will be made to wear face coverings for many years with strict regulations in place for some time.
It will be “nigh-on impossible” they say, for individual airlines to allow passengers to travel without face coverings as international rules would need to be “consistent”.
“Until there is a harmonised lifting of mask mandates on flights by governments worldwide it is simpler for airlines to keep the rules in place,” a senior aviation source told The Times newspaper.
Most airlines currently follow guidelines from bodies including the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
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Another British airline source told The Times: “We’ll almost certainly keep the same policy until it is safe to move. For example, the rules in the US are very clear on masks. It would be ridiculous of us to ask passengers to put them on when we enter their airspace.”
Ryanair’s finance chief, Neil Sorahan, showed no indication that facemasks will soon no longer be a requirement to fly, telling passengers to “get used to them.”
Sorahan compared face masks on flights to the liquid restrictions imposed on planes after the September 11 attacks 20 years ago.
“Masks will be something that will be with us for a while longer to come,” he said.
