British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Heathrow Scrap Mask Mandates
British holidaymakers will not be required to wear masks on British Airways and Virgin Atlantic flights following the Government’s announcement that all Covid travel measures will end on Friday. MailOnline has more.
British Airways customers will only need to wear a face covering on board flights if their destination requires it, while Virgin Atlantic said it would be “gradually” removing compulsory mask rules from tomorrow – starting with Caribbean flights from London and Manchester.
The airlines welcomed the move after Heathrow announced they would be scrapping mandatory face coverings for passengers from March 16th amid the “continued success of the vaccine” and as society “learns to live with Covid long-term”.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Monday the changes will allow “greater freedom in time for Easter” and will mean “you can travel just like in the good old days”.
Heathrow said they “strongly encourage” those at the airport to continue wearing a face covering – particularly when coming into close contact with others – although this will no longer be a firm requirement.
The change will take effect in all of Heathrow’s terminals, rail stations and office buildings.
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Just one last weekend of “safety” for travellers to the Democratic People’s Republic of Caledonia then?
😀 😀
Just heard on the radio that Fraulein Sturgeon will be retaining some of the plague restrictions, including face coverings on public transport.
You’re shi- kidding me. Still?
Oh, Jesus wept. Until April. Really.
Probably until the end of time ( or until McKrankie gets the boot).
I was in Scotland a couple of weekends back for a wedding and I can safely say that hardly anyone was wearing a mask anywhere. My wife and I got a train from Glasgow city centre to the venue in Paisley and even two policemen patrolling the station concourse weren’t wearing them. Jimmy Krankie can say what she likes…the vast majority are ignoring her and certainly nobody is enforcing it.
It seems to be very localised. In a commuter toon outside Glasgow, I’m still seeing most people (“people”) muzzled up in shops, and wearing them at bus stops.
There are a few more faces on display, but mostly New Britons or neds, i.e. people to whom laws have never really applied.
Can someone PLEASE ask her to produce the EVIDENCE!!! Geez!!
You still need a muzzle to go to Scotland, it’s a policy that makes her look better in the eyes of the public.
That’s my point, you’ll still have to muzzle up for the landing at Glasgow, even if you’re flying from a sane country. Apparent the coofs will stay dormant until then, then cry “FREEEDOMMMM!” and run riot.
In fairness, she does look better wearing a mask.
Agreed, it seems that it’s a personal addiction or obsession. When Sourpuss wears a muzzle, all the mooses on the moose organ must wear muzzles.
[BREAKING UPDATE] Fret not, fellow Scotchmen, and Scotchmenwomen! Greet Leader Kween Krankie has decreed that we will remain completely safe until at least April, as we must keep wearing muzzles in order to get over the “spike” in coofs cases that we are experiencing because of – [EDIT] I mean, despite – wearing muzzles.
More muzzles = more coofs, so even more more muzzles = less coofs.
It’s just common sense.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60750364
and its nothing to do with the harvest of the jabfest coming home to roost that spike?? it it?
When are we likely to see the need for masking up rescinded in medical settings? It’s crazy in opticians, dentists and GP surgeries at the moment. Let alone Hospital and care home settings!
Absolutely.
Agree, calling by on Specsavers last week was a horror show, any good feeling about choosing new glasses has been ripped away, I didn’t enter, there was an airport style taped barrier and the masked assistant said any frames I touch while browsing must be put aside in a box to be sterilised, I pointed out the insanity of this, assistant said it was an nhs requirement, I said Specsavers is a private company and customers pay for everything, she had been brainwashed, I walked away.
I had an eye test at Specsavers simply because I get a voucher from my company that pay for it. I had to endure the Covid theatre that you described even though I absolutely refused to wear a mask and although they weren’t happy about it, let me in. I got my prescription and used Glasses Direct to buy the actual glasses I needed. I refuse to give Specsavers any money until they drop their absurd and unnecessary rules. In any case, the service I got from Glasses Direct was excellent and will use them again.
I thought the mask mandate had been dropped in the UK some time back? Therefore they’d have no justification to pressure you into wearing one? It sounds like a bloody awful experience and would put me off too.
Aren’t the masks needed because ‘smoke gets in your eyes’?
Not all the uk, legal requirements were dropped in England only and recently Northern Ireland, but organisations can still make their own rules, like London Mayor did for using transport in London (recently dropped) opticians are considered healthcare settings, even though to me they are more retail and don’t do procedures on open tissue, I don’t intend to wear a face covering for selecting new glasses, but seeing staff wearing muzzles has made me avoid the once good experience of trying new glasses uninviting.
What ‘they’ haven’t twigged yet is that masks cannot be mandated at all. They are classed as a ‘preventative medical intervention‘ by the UNESCO Convention on Bioethics and Human Rights, so cannot be forced on anyone but *must* have fully informed consent, which (i) I will not give regardless, and (ii) cannot be given anyway as there is no supporting information/evidence on their effectiveness.
great tip will check them out!
‘She had been brainwashed…’
One wonders how they found it, pre-scrubdown.
Touch all the frames!
It’s not law, only guidance, as far as I have been able to discover
Indeed! Just been to the dental hygienist and got asked to wear a mask. I said no, I don’t wear masks. No further hassle. Plus, this time I didn’t have to gargle with some foul so-called “anti-viral” guff. Progress in baby steps.
It’s weird…my dentist, even at the height of Covid mania, simply did not bother with any of the theatre apart from a few cursory posters up on the wall which he probably had to put up. It was lip service for the most part. There was no insistence on masks at any point, nor hand sanitiser and social distancing in the waiting room was never required.
Good for him.
was at dentist yesterday – had no idea what the protocol was, and at the end of the day was going to have mouth open for an hour of treatment so what would be the point in putting on a mask to prance up the stairs to the treatment room???
Have I slipped into a parallel universe where ‘the vaccines’ continue to be successful and this statement is made by such a well known health authority as an airport?
Quite right, we shouldn’t be relying on the Chief Executive of Heathrow Airport for our medical advice, we should go to the real medical experts, Piers Morgan, Jeremy Vine and Gary Lineker.
Don’t forget Dr hillary
Perhaps the statement meant to say the “vaccines” were successful in Heathrow. No where else. Just Heathrow.
We all slipped into a parallel world 2 years ago – probably the result of the Hadron Collider 😉
It has become a religious mantra like “god willing” or “inshallah”.
It signals submission to the techno gods, especially now that masks are being dropped.
As in:
We can return to normal life, vaccines willing.
“amid the “continued success of the vaccine”
Deluded.
Hardly deluded from the viewpoint of a Pfizer shareholder?
Pfizer shareholders need to open their eyes: https://rumble.com/vxipnk-dr.-flavio-cadegiani-on-how-pfizer-corrupts-science.html The whole cabal needs to be closed down, the execs put behind bars, and the honest scientists there set up in a new company, with the tech, where fully transparent oversight is mandated by law.
Mask wearing was all codswallop to begin with – pure theatre – obedience training … and still I see people wearing the damned things.
I loathe masks with a passion.
The “continued success of the vaccines” that doesn’t say much for the quality of the senior management team running the operations if they set the bar so dismally low as a measure of success, I wonder do they set the same level of achievement for the pilots they employ?
Or aircraft service engineers?
those 5 words now probably have to be included in any kind of article or journalism to ensure it gets published.
I am sick of news programmes jabbering on about the “success of the vaccine roll out”
To my mind it can only be considered a “success” if what you were aiming for in the first place was to make a whole lot of people vastly more unhealthy than they were pre March 2020
Terrific. Let’s all have a party.
The burning question for the good people of this parish is, How many people will continue to wear the stupid things in spite of it no longer being a requirement?
Hang on – look where that got Boris.
well we still don’t know where it got him – Met police still have not published results of their investigation and neither has Sue Gray.
“How many people will continue to wear the stupid things in spite of it no longer being a requirement?”
We already know the answer to that. Look around you.
At least will save the hassles if people not being able to use the automated passport checkers.
What is depressing is to see how many organisations are told “masks no longer needed” and respond with “well, we will continue to recommend them anyway.”
Are they all stupid? Brain dead? I am not aware of any individual, company, body or venue that has been successfully prosecuted for causing somebody to catch COVID because they didn’t enforce government measures properly. Are you? And that is even when these restrictions were mandatory. Now they are not even mandatory, what the hell are these gibbering cowards afraid of?
https://babylonbee.com/news/car-manufacturers-now-recommend-wearing-a-seatbelt-even-when-youre-outside-the-car
They want you to know that they have your safety in mind. After all, if it’s safe not to wear a mask, it must be even safer to wear one… stands to reason, dunnit?
Like all gibbering cowards they’re afraid of their own shadows
”British Airways customers will only need to wear a face covering on board flights if their destination requires it”. Now there are many ways of interpreting that.
Takes the US Fed rule that public transport still requires masks ( including airports and internal flights.
So will BA require masks for the whole duration of the flight to US; require them to be donned when entering US air space; Require them to be donned when disembarking?
Its going to have a hell of a job imposing the first, policing the second, but probably will get away with the third. But what if there is a US air marshall on board the flight? Ditto France and many other destinations. I don’t expect BA to announce something they know will create trouble, but it will be interesting to see what happens over the next week or so.
The US may remove their requirement on 18 April.
The Dutch government announced today that they’re dropping the mask mandate on public transport but keeping it for flying due to an “international agreement”. Does anybody know what they’re referring to? It just seems like anti-scientific clap trap, thereby further confirming that it’s all just theatre and not evidence-based, if more airlines continue to drop their mask mandates but others not. So people are honestly expected to get a BA flight from UK and can be unmasked but must muzzle up for their connecting flight from Amsterdam with KLM? I mean, if that isn’t an example of ‘Clown World’ logic and undermining the intelligence of the public I dunno what is! They’re now just blatantly taking the piss because they can’t possibly use the excuse that they’re “following the science”.
I’m taking my guidance from Ron deSantis. It is nothing more than pure theatre. Never was anything other than that.
As for “international agreement” – what that likely means is that Jacinda and Justin and Boris and Macron and others probably had some hideous zoom meeting and “agreed” to continue to tyrannise their citizens wherever they could reasonably get away with it hence they have an “international” agreement to force people to wear masks on airplanes.
This afternoon in town, a bent over old woman shuffling along with a green-yellow lanyard and a mask ‘exemption’ ID. Strangely, felt sorry for her, lost in a matrix she doesn’t comprehend.
I love the ‘continued success of the vaccine’.
The vaccine was designed to stop you catching Covid. It did not.
Then it was stated that it would stop it being transmitted. It did not.
Then we were told it would make people ‘less likely to be infectious’ Medical studies proved that wrong.
Finally we were told that it would make the illness ‘less severe’. Based on a survey of people who were asked if they felt better or worse, they concocted a statistical claim. Which is where we are now.
However:
The vaccine made a lot of money for Pfizer
The vaccine let politicians claim that they were ‘saving the world’
The vaccine diverted attention from all sorts of embarrasing political errors
The vaccine alowed thousands of bureaucrats undreamed of powers…
So, in a way, it was successful…
The vaccines also brought the Blairworm out of the woodwork, for which I’ll never forgive them!
The human face is more significant than is popularly understood. The Christians are right when they say that we are made in the image of God. This is especially true of the face, neck and shoulders. We were robbed of this understanding. Thankfully this event brought to the surface understandings that were thought long gone. The mystery schools teach that this period from 2020-2040 will be the deciding period, the arena.On every level the veil is being lifted.
scrapping mandatory face coverings for passengers from March 16th amid the “continued success of the vaccine” and as society “learns to live with Covid long-term”.
Oh… right… Not because they don’t bloody work then?
We have overturned this tendency and we will overturn others but they will come back thick and fast. We all have to accept that there are no adults in the room anymore.If we are bothered about what is happening then this should never lead to paralysis. But there has to be a deep acknowledgement that the adults disappeared a long time ago.
Heathrow can “strongly encourage” as much as they like: I won’t be wearing one when I go there next week.
“Heathrow said they “strongly encourage” those at the airport to continue wearing a face covering – particularly when coming into close contact with others – although this will no longer be a firm requirement.”
Idiots!
What a shame, I was looking forward to drinking and eating throughout a transatlantic flight!!
Tricky with a mask on
“British Airways customers will only need to wear a face covering on board flights if their destination requires it”!! That is completely illogical!! If the destination requires it, then you surely don’t need to wear them in *international airspace*, i.e. before the destination, or even in the plane at tens of thousands of feet in the air over the destination country where the cabin air is now replaced frequently. Moreover, there’s the slight issue of the complete falsity of the concept of asymptomatic transmission, oh, and the complete ineffectiveness of the masks themselves. It’s all a load of bo****ks, and what’s worse is that they know it is.
The people who make these statements and policies need to be identified. Who exactly are these people?
it will be a bit like on flights to iran – none of the women wear the hijab until they get into Iranian airspace and then the pilots put out an announcement over the tannoy and all of a sudden the women don their hijabs.