Ten Commercial Pilots Sue CDC Over Federal Mask Mandate

March 18, 2022

A gaggle of economic airline pilots filed a lawsuit in opposition to the CDC in an try to strike down the federal transportation masks mandate, in line with FOX Business.

The 10 pilots, who work for American Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines, mentioned the CDC’s masks mandate is an “illegal and unconstitutional exercise of executive authority.”

The pilots argued that the CDC issued its public transportation masks order in February 2021 “without providing public notice or soliciting comment” and are asking the court docket to finish the mandate.

Following the CDC order, the Transportation Security Administration issued a masks mandate in February 2021, which was set to run out in May 2021. The TSA has prolonged the mandate a number of instances because the pandemic has continued, and final week, it prolonged the coverage once more till April 18.

Until then, the “CDC will work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor,” the TSA mentioned in a press release. “This revised framework will be based on the COVID-19 community levels, risk of new variants, national data, and the latest science.”

However, the pilots claimed of their lawsuit that the coverage was adopted regardless of “countless scientific and medical studies and articles showing that face masks are totally ineffective.”

The pilots additionally mentioned they’ve seen “up close and personal the chaos in the sky,” with hundreds of stories of unruly passenger conduct for the reason that mandate took impact in 2021.

So far this yr, the Federal Aviation Administration has obtained 889 stories of unruly passengers, with 587 instances associated to masks, in line with the company’s newest knowledge. In 2021, the FAA obtained almost 6,000 unruly passenger instances, with 4,290 being mask-related.

The pilots pointed to the mandate itself as the rationale for the unruly conduct, claiming that the CDC “illegally failed to give passengers and employees our legally guaranteed option” to refuse a “medical device.” They mentioned a face masks was a medical machine.

The pilots additionally mentioned that masks are uncomfortable, make it laborious to breathe, decrease oxygen within the blood and trigger complications, in line with Newsy.

“You see a lot of frustration with the passengers as they come on board the plane,” Jeff Chandler, a Southwest pilot and one of many 10 plaintiffs, informed the information outlet.

“It’s causing them to be very aggravated and lash out when otherwise they would just be normal and happy people getting on a plane to go do whatever it is they’re heading out to do,” he mentioned.