As United Airlines Announces Mandatory Face Masks, Engineers Made Sure a Boeing 787 Complied With The Rules

United Airlines have released several photos of one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s complying with COVID-19 face mask rules that already apply to flight attendants and which will be extended to passengers beginning May 4. Engineers at United’s base in Denver, Colorado dressed the Dreamliner in the face mask ahead of the rules being enforced to bring attention to a change that will apply to passengers at an increasing number of airlines going forward.

The airline became the first major U.S.-based carrier to mandate the use face masks for flight attendants on April 24 but initially resisted the call to extend the rules to passengers. In an internal memo, the airline said it would make flight attendants wear masks as a “proactive, aggressive measure to keep you and our customers safe”.

While the decision had been made in conjunction with the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), the union’s often outspoken leader Sara Nelson had urged United to go further and make passengers also wear masks.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended the use of face masks or homemade face coverings since April 3 after examining evidence that suggests many people who contract the novel Coronavirus are asymptomatic sufferers and could pass on the virus without knowing it.

So, while wearing a face mask may provide very little protection for the wearer, experts believe it their can reduce the risk of an asymptomatic sufferer passing the Coronavirus onto someone else – an idea that is only effective if nearly everyone is wearing mask.

jetBlue became the first major carrier in the United States to mandate the wearing of face masks by passengers. American, Delta and Frontier quickly followed and since then a number of other airlines have updated their policies including Alaska Airlines and Southwest.

United says it will provide face masks to any passengers who does not have their own but requests passengers to be ready when they arrive at the airport. A number of other airlines around the world have introduced similar policies, including Alitalia, Emirates and Lufthansa.