A few weeks ago, the mask mandate in the US for use on airplanes and airports was removed. Now, the EU is set to drop their mask requirements as well. What does this mean?
The EU Dropping Mandatory Masks for Airports and Flights
Unlike the US where there is one federal government, the EU is made up of many member nations and each nation retains their own laws and rules for many things. So, it is a bit more confusing when the EU says they are dropping masks than when the US drops mask usage.
What this means is that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had agreed today that “face masks will no longer need to be mandatory in air travel in all cases, broadly aligning with the changing requirements of national authorities across Europe for public transport.”
So this is a recommendation that is being made and this recommendation is set to kick in on May 16. But, the member nations are not required to follow the recommendation. However, how it works is that the member nations all have representatives in these committees and agencies and when an announcement is made like this, it is done so because the majority of the nations have agreed on it already.
Each country will still be able to require it if they so choose but if this follows the pattern of all other recommendations since the beginning of Covid, plan on EU member nations dropping mask requirements next week.
I am set to fly from Greece to the US next week so will be eager to see if this is adopted by Greece in practice as Greece is typically the longest hold out on a variety of restrictions that were dropped by others. I believe we will see a majority of countries and airlines in the EU follow this recommendation.
