Halfway into her flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles Monday night time, Brooke Tansley heard the pilot’s voice pipe up via the general public tackle system, apologizing for the interruption.
“You’re going to be very excited to hear this news,” she recalled him saying. The Transportation Security Administration was not requiring masks on planes, and passengers have been free to take them off in the event that they’d like. The announcement was met with a smattering of claps and a few jubilant cheers, and a couple of third of the individuals aboard instantly peeled off their masks, Ms. Tansley mentioned.
For some vacationers, Monday night’s announcement from the T.S.A. that it might cease implementing a masks mandate after a federal decide in Florida struck down the requirement got here as they have been already on their method — in airport terminals, on the tarmac and even within the air.
Many passengers greeted the information with applause and cheers, as seen in movies on social media. One took a celebratory selfie, with most fellow passengers in extensive, maskless grins. A pilot advised these aboard his flight: “Congratulations.”
Not all flights appeared to have instantly accomplished away with the masks requirement. At least one particular person wrote on Twitter {that a} flight attendant advised him masks needed to keep on.
For her half, Ms. Tansley felt a jolt of concern and alarm. She was together with her two youngsters, a 4-year-old and an 8-month-old, each too younger to be vaccinated, the newborn too younger for a masks. She was on her method to a piece assembly involving a colleague with a uncommon autoimmune illness, and her household had undergone P.C.R. exams as a result of they have been fearful about doubtlessly infecting him.
“I was scared — all I could do was hope it’s going to be OK,” she mentioned. “There wasn’t any other option.”
Ms. Tansley mentioned her household hadn’t been on a flight since Christmas 2019 out of concern concerning the virus. She has bronchial asthma, and mentioned she wasn’t positive whether or not she would go forward together with her work conferences, or what her household would do about their return flight house on April 25.
“It’s not that the mask mandate has changed that upset me, it’s that we boarded the plane under one set of rules, and made a decision as a family and as a work group,” mentioned Ms. Tansley, a tv producer and former Broadway performer. “The decision was made for us midflight.”
Scott Hechinger, a lawyer, was ready for his delayed flight to New York at a crowded terminal in West Palm Beach, Fla., when the announcement got here that the mandate had been lifted and passengers have been free to board their flights with out masks.
The terminal erupted in a loud, sustained cheer, and about half the vacationers took off their masks, he mentioned.
“For this announcement to happen literally minutes before we got in the plane made me feel very uncomfortable,” Mr. Hechinger wrote in a textual content message. On his flight, about 75 p.c have been unmasked, he mentioned.
He mentioned he fearful about his spouse and 6-year-old son, who have been within the air on a separate flight en path to Los Angeles.
“It hit me that my wife and young son would also likely get this announcement midflight and be more exposed than usual,” he wrote. “I’m upset, uncomfortable, and frustrated.”
