An emergency application to temporarily block the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) federal mask mandate for people in airports, onboard commercial aircraft, on over-the-road buses and on commuter bus and rail systems has been denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. The mandate is in effect up until at least March 18, 2022.
According to Fox Business, the emergency request was brought forth by a Florida father by the name of Michael Seklecki and his son, who is four and is autistic. Seklecki claims that his son cannot tolerate wearing a face mask but needs to take a flight to Massachusetts to receive regular medical care at the Boston Children's Hospital.
Another plaintiff in the case is Lucas Wall from Washington D.C., who court documents said is "stranded at his mother's residence in The Villages, Florida, because TSA banned him from boarding a flight out of Orlando International Airport on June 2, 2021, solely because he can't wear a face mask due to his Generalized Anxiety Disorder."
According to KTLA 5, the emergency request was filed to Justice Neil Gorsuch, who handles emergency applications that come from several Western states. The judge refereed the matter to the full court, which then denied the request without providing comment or a noted dissent.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to comment on the rejection of the emergency appeal to block the travel mask mandate. The court's decision also comes just days after they ruled against the Biden administration's COVID vaccine mandate for private employers with at least 100 workers, but decided to uphold the same mandate for workers in the healthcare sector.
In December, controversial White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested that mask wearing in airplanes and mandates surrounding it may be here indefinitely, The Hill reported. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director said during an episode of ABC's "This Week," "When you're dealing with a closed space, even though the filtration is good, that you want to go that extra step...Even though you have a good filtration system, I still believe that masks are a prudent thing to do, and we should be doing it."
According to the Daily Beast, a survey conducted last summer by the Association of Flight Attendants, a labor union representing up to 50,000 flight attendants across 17 airlines showed an increase in unruly passengers in the past year, as airline operations are slowly returning to normal.
The survey showed that up to 85% of flight attendants had to deal with unruly passengers and about one in five had experienced physical incidents over COVID precautionary measures on airplanes. Nearly 60% of flight attendants said they have faced more than five incidents in the previous year alone, with one in five flight attendants reporting that some incidents have even escalated to physical altercations.
In a statement accompanying the survey, the AFA called upon the federal government to "redouble efforts to hold every disruptive passenger accountable." The organization said, "The vitriol, verbal and physical abuse from a small group of passengers... is unacceptable and puts everyone onboard at risk. This is not a new normal we are willing to accept."
