The CEOs of two of America's biggest airlines said on Wednesday they do not think masks should be required on planes any longer - even as new cases of the Omicron variant spread across the nation.
At a Senate hearing about the financial support airlines received in 2020 and 2021, Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking Republican on the Senate committee, asked American Airlines CEO Doug Parker and Southwest CEO Gary Kelly their thoughts on the federal government's mask mandate for flying.
'I think the case is very strong that masks don't add very much, if anything, in the air cabin environment,' Kelly said. 'It is very safe and very high quality compared to any other indoor setting.'
Both he and Parker pointed out that airlines improved airflow on board their planes in the wake of the pandemic, noting that high-grade HEPA air filters on planes capture almost all airborne contamination and the cabin air is often exchanged with fresh air from outside.
'I concur,' said Parker, according to CNN. 'An aircraft is the safest place you can be.
'It's true of all of our aircrafts - they all have the same HEPA filters and airflow.'
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker (left) and Southwest CEO Gary Kelly (right) testified on Wednesday that they do not believe travelers should be forced to wear masks on flights any longer
The Transportation Safety Administration first announced its mask mandate for all travelers last year, and has since extended it. Passengers are pictured here waiting for an American Airlines flight to Dallas to take of from the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
The Transportation Safety Administration first announced its mask mandate for all travelers last year, and extended it in April, with an expiration date of September 13, before extending it again in August through March 2022.
The numbers of people flying plummeted at the beginning of the pandemic but has been picking up throughout 2021 thanks to travelers' confidence in the safety of air travel.
Some of that confidence is due to the mask mandate, said Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants.
Tuesday saw 1,520,251 people pass through the TSA gates at airports throughout the country - nearly 2 percent higher than the number who passed through the gates last year.
Nelson also noted that not all airplanes are equipped with the same quality of air filters, and some of the older planes do not have the HEPA filters.
And while she said she thinks it should be up to the 'medical community' to decide whether masks are still needed on planes, she said she does not support ending it at this time.
'I believe that the government has taken a very responsible approach to this,' she said. 'We believe it should continue to stay in place,' calling it a 'workplace safety issue.'
'We do need a consistent message though,' Nelson testified, adding: 'I hope we are going to stay on the same messages and follow the medical experts, and do what's necessary to keep everybody safe.'
Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, also said it was 'immoral' for the CEOs to suggest that people should no longer have to wear masks on planes, when unvaccinated people could sit next to vaccinated Americans.
'I'm shocked that some of the CEOs here today have suggested we no longer need mask mandates on planes,' he said. 'In the face of Omicron, children under five who still cannot be vaccinated... and that we still allow unvaccinated people on planes.'
Sen. Ed Markey slammed the CEOs for suggesting the mask mandate should end
Since the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020, the airline industry has adopted new cleaning and safety protocols to mitigate the risk of coronavirus, including installing the high-performance air filtration systems and sanitizing planes.
The companies received $25 billion in government assistance from the CARES Act, which required them to keep employees on payroll.
They then got an additional $15 billion in funding in the coronavirus relief package signed by former President Donald Trump in December 2020, and another $482 million under Biden this past September to cover their expenses.
All the while, Biden announced that all federal contractors, including all of the American airlines would have to vaccinate all of their employees, or they could face termination.
Southwest officials announced in the weeks before the vaccine mandate went into effect they were still waiting on 56,000 to be vaccinated in accordance with the mandate, and American Airlines' officials have extended its deadline for its more than 100,000 employees to get vaccinated to January 4.
The number of people flying in 2021 has nearly doubled since last year, which Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said is due to travelers' confidence in the safety of air travel, in part due to the mask mandate. A traveler wearing a face mask is pictured receiving her boarding pass from an American Airlines employee in San Francisco
Many of the planes are also equipped with new air filtration devices that catch nearly all contaminants on board
But now, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading at such a rapid pace that experts worry the United States infection rate will double in coming weeks.
Omicron cases in the United States have jumped seven-fold in a week, the CDC revealed, with data from states showing confirmed infections with the new COVID variant jumped 27 percent in the last 24 hours, from 189 to 241.
On Tuesday, the CDC said Omicron is now estimated to account for 2.9 per cent of all Covid cases, up from 0.4 percent a week ago, meaning the true number of infections from the new strain likely numbers in the thousands.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky also said Omicron comprises up to 13 per cent of new infections in New York and New Jersey, with the variant now confirmed to have been found in 36 states, as well as Washington DC.
Experts recently warned a 'tidal wave' of Omicron is headed to the US, with the UK recording its biggest one day diagnosis total - 78,610 cases on Wednesday, 10,000 of which were the new variant, giving Americans a likely preview of what's to come.
According to most recent data gathered by BNO - which scrapes data from local health departments nationwide - cases of the variant have jumped to 241, up by 52 cases from Wednesday.
Dr. Gregory Poland, a top epidemiologist at the Mayo Clinic told DailyMail.com that the variant is likely spreading so fast across the U.S., that the country's genetic sequencing infrastructure can not keep up with it.'
'We do so little sequencing that we really don’t have a good idea of Omicron epidemiology at the local level,' he said.
Because of the country's relatively low ability to sequence cases, he says that there are likely 100 actual cases of Omicron for every one that is confirmed in America.
Overall, cases in the U.S. are continuing to grow, up 46 per cent over the past two weeks to 121,687 per day. More than 67,000 people are in the hospital with the virus every day as well, up 22 per cent over the past two weeks. Deaths are nearing the 1,300 per day mark as well, up 40 per cent.
As of 11 am on Wednesday, Johns Hopkins reports that 50,251,149 COVID cases and 800,867 deaths have been recorded in the United States since the pandemic first began in March 2020.
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