On March 15th, the US Senate passed a measure ending the Transportation Mask Mandate. You would be able to free your face during commercial flights. But the Buden White House said it would veto it.
That same day a group of commercial pilots from six states filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against the Centers for Democrat Control (CDC) and the Department Anti-Health and Inhuman Services (my names, not theirs).
They want a court to end the order.
What concerns them? There are the usual suspects. They lack administrative authority, subverting or bypassing the administrative rule-making process, and it’s unconstitutional. We agree, but the lead plaintiff provided a list of other concerns that could make passengers queasy.
- “We can’t hear air traffic control clearly,” she said. “We can always tell when they’re wearing masks because it’s difficult to understand them.
- We can’t smell alcohol on passengers or crew, so we can’t make safety judgments on fitness to fly.
- We can’t smell smoke or electrical in the cockpit, where a few seconds will make a big difference in outcome.
- All of the safety things that are drilled into our heads for years are suddenly taking a backseat to wearing a mask.”
- [Janviere Carlin, a pilot for JetBlue Airways] said there is “also the stress of it.”
- “You anticipate the harassment you know you’re going to get as you go through TSA if your mask isn’t the right material or it isn’t fitting right, or someone just doesn’t like it,” she said.
- Carlin also noted the sharp rise in unruly passenger incidents caused by the mask mandate, inspiring the pilots to coin the phrase “chaos in the sky” in their complaint.
We’ve all heard stories about conflicts on planes over “proper masking™.” Some Karen loses their mind because a fellow passengers’ mask is askew, or a passenger has had enough with the rule (it is a stupid rule) and gets booted from the flight. The trip is disrupted, diverted, or has to land to remove offending parties.
How big of an issue is it? In 2021 of the 5981 unruly passenger complaints, 72% were mask-related. Repealing the mandate would end most of that, and it won’t prohibit people who want to wear a mask from doing that. As useless as it is.
And there are safety concerns though none, to my knowledge, that have resulted in tragedy. Is this just a case of numerous lucky pulls in a game of Russian roulette?
How will that bear – if at all – on the suit’s outcome?
And if a federal judge decides that neither the CDC nor HHS has this mandate authority, how far down the mask mandate food chain does that go?
Nearly every state and local bureaucrat and more than a few politicians justified their mask-tyranny on the CDC and HHS orders. If neither has that power, to what daemons will the locals sacrifice your rights to justify another round of useless “indoor” face-muggings?
