Lufthansa Trades Social Distancing For Face Masks

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: April 29, 2020

31 comments

Yesterday JetBlue announced that they’d make face masks mandatory when traveling, which is something I expect will soon become the standard across airlines. Lufthansa has just made a similar announcement, but they’re eliminating another protection in the process.

In this post:

Lufthansa will require face masks

It has been announced that between May 4 and August 31, 2020, Lufthansa Group airlines will ask all passengers to wear a mouth-nose cover onboard flights.

The company recommends passengers use face coverings throughout the entire journey (in other words, when at the airport, when minimum distance cannot be guaranteed, etc.). Furthermore, Lufthansa Group flight attendants will also be wearing masks.

Passengers are required to bring their own masks. A reusable fabric mask is recommended, but all other types of coverings, such as simple disposable masks or scarves are also allowed.

Face coverings will be required across Lufthansa Group airlines

Lufthansa cuts blocked middle seats

In late March it was announced that Lufthansa and Eurowings would block all middle seats in economy and premium economy on flights from Germany. The decision had been made in conjunction with Germany’s Federal Minister of Transport.

With Lufthansa Group soon requiring masks on flights, this policy will no longer apply. As the press release describes it, “wearing the mouth-nose cover provides adequate health protection.”

It’s also noted that due to the current low occupancy rate, seats will nevertheless be allocated as widely as possible throughout the cabin.

Lufthansa claims that since the outbreak of the pandemic, no concrete cases of transmission on Lufthansa Group flights have become known.

Lufthansa will no longer block middle seats

This is a move towards a new normal

Let me say up front that I don’t like wearing face masks for an extended period of time. It’s one of the reasons I don’t leave home or travel right now (in addition to just trying to be a decent person). I’m sure I will get used to it over time, though like many, it’s not something I particularly enjoy.

That being said, I’m 100% supportive of this, because widespread policies like this will help the industry slowly return to normal:

Making face masks mandatory on planes is one of the steps needed to normalize flying, until we have further advancements in fighting COVID-19 in other areas, like testing, vaccines, etc.
It’s simply not possible to social distance on planes, no matter what kind of fake promises airlines make
Ideally airlines would block seats and require passengers to wear face masks (because some separation is better than none, even if it’s not a full six feet), but at least in theory being able to sell all seats makes the airline business more sustainable once people start flying again

More precautions are needed for now so that travel can eventually resume, and hopefully over time advancements in other areas will mean this will no longer be needed.

Ryanair’s CEO is also in favor of making face masks mandatory

Bottom line

I’m pleased to see more airlines adding face mask requirements. Ideally airlines would block seats and require face masks, but the economics of that are obviously challenging. Once we go back to flying, I suspect this will be a consistent requirement for at least some period of time.

Do you think we’ll see most airlines requiring face masks soon?

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Tomislav Member

May 4, 2020, 12:56 pm

Lufthansa did not block middle seats during the flight I took yesterday. Economy was packed, but they also did not enforce wearing masks, unlike Croatia airlines, despite the fact that on CA website it is also written they will start to enforce this from May 4th. It was a very strange trip.....

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Nightliner Member

May 1, 2020, 1:27 am

Nobody said it's going to prevent all infections. It's one of many measures to help lessen the infection rate. Someone who is sick and wears a mask is less likely to infect someone sitting near. Someone wearing a mask is a little less likely to catch something. And no, we don't always get infected with everything around us (thankfully). But we need to slow the infection rate, or else we won't be able to care for those who become very sick. Look at Italy, Spain, New York.

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Barry Graham Guest

May 1, 2020, 1:18 am

I hear you but if preventing illness were as simple as wearing masks, then why haven't we been doing that for thousands of years? People need to get sick and better, to keep their immune systems working and to allow us to develop cures. I've rarely if ever got sick after any of the hundreds of flights I've been on and I doubt that not one of those flights had a sick person near me. The IATA medical adviser also said: Q: Does wearing masks and gloves help prevent infections? A: First of all, masks. There’s very limited evidence of benefit, if any, in a casual situation. Masks are useful for those who are unwell to protect other people from them. But wearing a mask all the time will be ineffective. It will allow viruses to be transmitted around it, through it and worse still, if it becomes moist it will encourage the growth of viruses and bacteria. Gloves are probably even worse, because people put on gloves and then touch everything they would have touched with their hands. So it just becomes another way of transferring micro-organisms. And inside the gloves, your hands get hot and sweaty, which is a really good environment for microbes to grow.

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Nightliner Member

May 1, 2020, 1:05 am

@Barry sorry...but: while it's unlikely to catch something out of the AC (indeed, the air is exchanged very frequently AFAIK due to the nature of aircraft pressurisation systems), of course you'll be more than able to breathe in droplets from sneezes and coughs in your vicinity. Otherwise no one would have ever gotten a cold from one of their fellow passengers. So the pax in 15A is highly unlikely to catch a cold from the sneezing lady in 26C, but the coughing guy in 16B or the lady blowing her nose in 14D? Can happen.

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Barry Graham Guest

May 1, 2020, 12:57 am

Has everyone forgotten that IATA's Doctor was quoted as saying that airliner air circulation systems make masks unnecessary just a few weeks ago. This is all about making scared people feel better, but that could have been done with some education too. Also, nobody seems concerned about our future ability to fight off disease if we stop exercising our immune systems.

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