The President and CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA), Zane Kerby, today sent a letter directed at the airline industry and U.S. government officials, urging the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to step in and formally control and implement air travel mask-wearing policies.
Throughout the pandemic, ASTA conducted a series of surveys every fortnight to gauge public opinion and consumer trust about the travel industry. Kerby said that its combined results indicate that individuals would be far more likely to resume flying if they could be assured that others would conform to health and safety measures with whom they would share close quarters, mask-wearing being chief among them.
"This inconsistency is holding back the recovery of travel," said Kerby, in the absence of a standardized, federally implemented rule, and without the resources to introduce effective, rapid-response viral testing at airports as a fallback step.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most major U.S. airlines now mandate that all passengers and staff wear masks or suitable face coverings during the trip as part of their company policies. However, they essentially lack the power to implement these rules among customers who will not toe the line without official backing from the FAA.
He argued that the impediment to a widespread resumption of commercial travel is not a dampening of the desire of people to go out and explore the world, but, rather, it comes down to the reluctance of Americans to resume activities that put them close to strangers that they can not be sure will be responsible for behaving.
He sees an FAA-mandated mask requirement as a quick fix and a crucial remedy for putting the industry back on a path toward recovery. He said, "More Americans want to return to the skies." "The federal government needs to step up to make them feel comfortable doing so. It is time for the FAA to mandate all flights to wear masks.
Kerby wrote that ASTA's pandemic-era studies have consistently found that the willingness of consumers to restart any operation "is linked to their ability to control the health risks of that given experience." "The desire to control personal health risk, and the fear that others do not do their part, are powerful deterrents to travel," he explained.
Our study confirms that a clearly articulated and uniformly implemented FAA mask requirement would dramatically increase the trust of the public in flying and help millions more return to the skies of the country," Kerby summed up."
Visit asta.org for more information.
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