[Reichhardt]

Air travel won't be back to normal (if that's even the intention) until vaccination, mask, and testing requirements are abandoned.

Sitting on an 11-hour plane ride with a German woman shouting at you every 30 minutes that your mask is too low (my experience flying from the US to Berlin last week) is a very unpleasant experience.

[stevage]

That won't fix it. The world is kind of split between those who see covid as dangerous and those who don't. Ditch all these requirements and the former group stops travelling.

[Mountain_Skies]

There's also habit destruction. The longer travel is subjected to these types of restrictions, the more people who were in the habit of travel, especially by aircraft, will decide to do something else, especially for leisure. Business travelers also will be impacted long term as companies have discovered that Zoom meetings can replace many (though not all) in person meetings. Trade shows were already in danger of dying but had inertia from the good times behind them. Probably half of pre-covid trade shows will never come back. Lots of long term demand destruction is being generated.

[hirako2000]

It could fix it. Some airlines may opt to serve fearful passengers by maintaining safety restrictions, while others would rather serve the risk takers and let passengers do as before the pandemic. or the same airliner having many flights per day for the same route could reasonably offer both options.

That's pretty much what happened before restaurants were forced to ban smoking altogether. There was non smoking areas and smoking areas, and some restaurants entirely non smoking, and some allowing smoking anywhere. I don't want those days back but it worked. it's not the most cost efficient but better than have half customers abandon the service altogether.

To open the possibility to see it work, restrictions as a blanket regulation first need to drop to let service providers and their customers base figure things out.

It's not ideal, but the current situation is even less ideal in term of business and also universal access to flight travel.

Why should the flight regulation be dropped? to me on the simple basis that it's perfectly legal for me to rent a van, take 11 other people with me and do a 17h road trip without anybody masked, without anyone vaccinated, nor tested. and I could charge for that trip. it isn't a perfect parallel but I doubt the spread risk is higher on a 4h flight than on a 17h van trip, probably the contrary.

Some could advocate to address the logical flaw and regulate van trips as well, the same advocates would then complain 6 months later that they see too many nearly empty vans on the road.

Opinions are debatable, and I don't engage in that debate there. Logic should be universal, I beg everyone to give some respect to logic whatever path we take.

[nate_meurer]

I agree, but it a few months it won't matter. As omicron recedes (and barring the emergence of another scary variant) the segment of the population that remains frightened enough to stay off of places and out of restaurants will rapidly shrink into economic insignificance.

[hirako2000]

Until yet another variant is announced.

[llampx]

You could also take 17 people on the van without taking their luggage through an X-ray machine and they could take liquids on board. Doesn't seem to be a good parallel.

[hirako2000]

The comparaison with liquid ban and scanners isn't good rather, since they could argue that flight hijacking poses a far greater risk than a van hijacking.

But as we are on it... I'm not in favor of x-ray nor liquid ban, it is to note forcing an x-ray scan is illegal in many juridictions, travelers should be given the choice of going through traditional search if they wish to. So here as well the comparison makes no sense since x-ray isn't mandatory to travel. And it is a questionable measure due to potential health consequences for frequent travellers put through it.

No liquid is another absurdity that came up at the height of anti terrorism efforts, one guy managed to concoct an explosive with a small quantity of liquids and all liquid containers above a certain threshold got banned. At that rate bans could apply to all sort of common things to want to carry with us. Such as clothing since some clothes can be made highly inflammable. All it would take is one creative criminal to somewhat succeed with that and we will have to swap our clothes with airport issued garnements. It's a stretch, but since we have no choice, i bet most of us would tolerate the absurdity once in a while so that we can get to travel.

I think x-rays make economical sense for airports so it got adopted. Ban on liquids didn't get much push back because it made security checks simpler for airports and leads to far more water bottles sales past the checkpoints. Airports are first a business.

[rnk]

You should be wearing your mask over your mouth and nose though. There could definitely be someone there who because of a medical condition cannot be immunized. Like my own kid. Everyone wants to throw away their masks but what's going to happen for people they can't get immunized?

[tinus_hn]

People aren’t going to wear masks forever and COVID is never going away.

So what’s going to happen to people who can’t get immunized? They’re just going to have to choose between biting the bullet and taking on the risk, or safely stay inside forever.

Probably not what you want to hear but there simply is no way around it. Perhaps someone can invent a mask that filters air coming in so they can protect themselves but as of yet, it doesn’t exist.

[nate_meurer]

I have seen no evidence that covid can be spread via nasal respiration. Covid spreads through droplets and aerosols. Normal nasal respiration produces no droplets or aerosols, and even a very hard nasal expiration can produce only a few hundred droplets at most, and usually far less. Contrast this to a single sneeze or hard cough which can produce millions of droplets and a cloud of infectious aerosol. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7293495/]

I believe evidence supports the role of masks as spit shields. But the whole charade of masking on planes and in restaurants is completely useless, since everybody removes their mask completely for every meal, snack, and drink.

[Ekaros]

They should isolate or use sufficient protective equipment. Rest of the world can't be forced to suffer for the few.

[ahartmetz]

> with a German woman shouting at you every 30 minutes that your mask is too low

She did this for no reason at all, presumably... /s

[nate_meurer]

And then everyone on the plane removes their mask completely while they eat, multiple times on an international flight. So yes, it was literally for no reason at all.

[ahartmetz]

Consider this: it is not possible to make rules that appear sensible in every possible situation, yet if you don't have any rules, you also get no effect.

[nate_meurer]

No, what we have here is exactly that: a rule with no effect. If everyone on a crowded plane removes their masks for extended periods of time, multiple times during a flight, then what exactly is the "effect" of wearing them at other times? Do you imagine covid becomes less transmissible once dinner is served?

Same with restaurants, where we are told we have to wear masks in order to walk to our tables, but we can remove them once seated, and proceed to eat, drink, talk, laugh, and make merry unmasked, because apparently the mere act of sitting deactivates covid.

These are not effective rules in any sense. They are purely cargo cult.

[adriancr]

so what stopped you from complying?, the fact that the rule was stupid was sufficient motivation for you to disregard it and annoy a flight attendant enough that you get screamed at and have your trip made unpleasant? (and possibly annoy and make other people uncomfortable as well?)

What would have been your reaction had a passenger politely asked you to put it on properly as everyone else? (asking since I would do that and not sure what to expect anymore)

[nate_meurer]

Why would you scold someone for wearing a mask improperly when you know everyone's about to remove their masks completely as soon as the snacks come out? What's the point of that?

[tinus_hn]

Yet if you have ineffective rules, you also get no effect.

[patrick451]

Indeed. Myself and many I know have simply stopped flying altogether for this reason. These days, if I can't drive, I simply don't go.

[vb6sp6]

Seems to me like there was a simple solution