End of federal transportation mask mandate greeted with confusion and relief

Marty Chavez stepped into the terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for his flight to Ohio early Tuesday and frantically began to search for his mask.

He turned to a United Airlines employee standing nearby and asked if he had a spare.

“Sir, the mandate has been lifted,” the worker said. “You don’t have to wear a mask.”

One day after a federal court judge struck down a rule that required people to wear masks on planes, at airports, on subways and in other public transportations settings, similar scenes were playing out at airports and other places across the country as Americans adjusted to the end of a mandate that had persisted when many others were allowed to expire.

Airlines and travel groups on Tuesday were cheering the decision handed down Monday by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the Middle District of Florida.

Several airlines, including United, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, whose chief executives in recent weeks had lobbied for the mandate’s end, quickly announced they would no longer enforce the rule. The Transportation Security Administration made a similar announcement; Amtrak and Uber also told travelers that masks were optional.

The transportation mandate has been among the highest-profile mask requirements in the country, continuing even after most school districts and other jurisdictions have allowed similar mandates to expire. Conflicts over masks have been particularly acute on airplanes, where some flight attendants have been physically attacked and verbally abused for enforcing mask rules.

[Judge’s ruling leaves a mishmash of transportation mask rules across the US]

Last week, the Biden administration announced it was extending the requirement through May 3. But Mizelle’s decision Monday in response to a lawsuit filed by a legal group known as Health Freedom Defense Fund and airline passengers - including Ana Daza, who said she has anxiety aggravated by wearing a mask - upended those plans.

Even so, some passengers on Tuesday, like Chavez, were unaware that masks were no longer required or were reluctant to ditch their face coverings.

At O’Hare, even as travelers were being told they no longer had to wear masks, announcements continued to play in terminals indicating that masks were required. Most people arriving at the airport early Tuesday wore masks.

The judge’s decision comes as coronavirus cases are again climbing in the Northeast, with the BA.2 omicron subvariant, which is more contagious than its predecessor, becoming the predominant strain in the United States. Health officials say it’s not clear whether the rise is the start of a larger surge.

The CDC’s masking order has been enforced through directives issued by TSA. The Biden administration said Monday evening that the court’s decision means the CDC’s order is not in effect.

Scot Severson, 54, of St. Charles, Ill., skipped the mask after hearing from a friend that the mandate had been lifted.

Severson was flying to Orlando, Fla. for a convention connected to the mold and water remediation company he operates a franchise. It’s his third flight of the pandemic and, despite his medical history, he said he’s not concerned about possible health risks.

“If I didn’t feel safe I wouldn’t be taking the trip,” he said.

Others, however, were taking no chances.

Ofelia Domingo, 76, is fully vaccinated and tested negative for the coronavirus, which was required for her flight to her native Philippines - her first since the pandemic began. Still, she said she planned to wear a mask for the duration of her flight.

“It’s up to the individual,” she said. “I’ll be wearing mine. I think a lot of people will be wearing masks still.”

In Terminal C at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Tuesday, news that masks would no longer be required was met with a mix of reactions. One woman going through security cheered, declaring, “We’re free again!” Others greeted the news with wariness.

Suzanne and Don Janson stood outside waiting for a ride after their early-morning flight from Pittsburgh. They were still wearing their N95 masks but said half of the passengers on their flight were not masked.

“I wish they still would wear them,” Suzanne Janson said. “I was surprised the stewardess wasn’t.”

But Katie Lankford, who was flying to Washington’s Dulles International Airport with her 2-year-old son, Chance, was relieved. She said it had been difficult to persuade the toddler to wear a mask.

“We tried,” she said about an earlier flight the pair had taken. “We did not succeed.”

In her decision, Mizelle, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, said the CDC had relied on a 1944 law, the Public Health Service Act, to impose the mandate. But the government’s argument that it put the mask requirement in place for the purpose of “sanitation” falls short, Mizelle argued.

“Wearing a mask cleans nothing. At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither ‘sanitizes’ the person wearing the mask nor ‘sanitizes’ the conveyance,” Mizelle wrote.

Mizelle found for the plaintiffs on three key issues, ruling that the CDC had exceeded its legal authority, that it had improperly avoided notice and comment procedures, and that its mandate was “arbitrary and capricious.” In her ruling, Mizelle argued that the mask mandate wrongly curtailed passengers’ freedom of movement.

“Anyone who refuses to comply with the condition of mask-wearing is - in a sense - detained or partially quarantined by exclusion” from their means of transportation, she wrote.

Airlines began requiring customers to wear masks in mid-2020 as part of the effort to contain the spread of the virus. The Trump administration declined to put a mask mandate in place, but shortly after taking office, Biden issued an order that required mask-wearing in all transportation settings.

While studies show mask-wearing can reduce the spread of the coronavirus, the mandate has caused conflict on airplanes and in airports. In a letter to Biden, last month, airline executives cited that as another reason for ending the mandate.

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The Washington Post’s Dan Simmons reported from Chicago and Mary Beth Gahan reported from Dallas.