I am a low key patient man... but...

More mask fights breaking out on planes

In a typical year prior to the pandemic, the FAA reports that they generally received between 100 and 150 “passenger misconduct” incident reports. In the first four months of 2021, they have received 2,500, with more than 1,900 being specific to the mask mandate. That’s not an “uptick.” That’s an increase of more than 1,000%.

I’m not in any way endorsing violence against flight attendants as a solution to a passenger’s issues. The people who do this need to be held accountable. Those flight crews didn’t make those rules, but are simply the unfortunate souls who were put in charge of enforcing them on the front lines.

There comes a time when these airlines sort of have to look in the mirror and wonder if some of this has something to do with themselves? We are not hearing massive issues with mask fights in restaurants, or mask fights in Targets, or Starbucks, or most any other place where masks are mandated. But we do hear about them on planes... all the time.

Now I have twice traveled on a plane since Covid. That was four separate plane trips. On every one of those plane trips I had to endure what wasn't just a mask mandate, but the constant hypervigilance of the flight attendants spending 90% of their times hassling people about their masks. 

"Sir, can you make sure your mask is higher up on your face." 

"Ma'am, can you make sure you put your mask back on in between your bites of your sandwich."

"Sir, Ma'am, Sir, Ma'am, Sir, Ma'am... 

Bu about the third or fourth time a different attendant told me my mask needed to higher up on my face (it was clearly covering my nose and mouth) I was getting pretty close to being one of those people who goes off. On the flight where I brought my son, both my son, myself, and several around us were told multiple times that we were not wearing our masks "properly" even as this is exactly the way I have worn a mask everywhere else, even to medical appointments. If it is good enough for a doctor or dentist, then it is good enough for a plane.

So it's not that the planes have a mask mandate. It's specifically the attitudes of the flight attendants. Not sure if there is some sort of special school of condescendence they are forced to attend or if they are just naturally that way, but these were not happy friendly people that flight attendants usually appear to be.  If they are just "following the rules" of flight travel, then those rules need a serious adjustment. 

More to the point, I don't generally fly coach. So when you hassle people who pay good money to upgrade their flight experience, you are likely hassling and being condescending to people who are largely successful and largely competent people, who are not going to react well to a flight attendant constantly telling them that their mask is too low or that they cannot eat or drink without putting their mask on and off and on and off. 

Perhaps that was part of the problem in all of this. Flight attendants suddenly felt like they had this new found power to hassle and otherwise appear condescending to those who may have looked down on or were condescending to them, previously? I don't know. I generally get along well with flight attendants and generally even end up in conversations with them. But not on these past couple of trips.