Airlines will however still be able to choose to impose the mask on board their planes.
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Health restrictions continue to ease. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) announced on Wednesday May 11 the lifting from Monday of the obligation to wear a mask in airports and on board planes in the European Union, decreed following of the Covid-19 pandemic. A decision that is “a big step forward in the standardization of air transport”according to the Agency.
Despite this decision, Germany, the largest economy and the most populous country in the EU, has said that it has no intention of lifting the obligation to wear a mask on its planes. Its airline Lufthansa and its Frankfurt airport are the first in Europe in their category.
EASA reminds that a face mask remains one of the best protections against the transmission of Covid-19, especially for vulnerable people. The Authority adds that the rules concerning masks in particular “will continue to vary by airline beyond this date” next Monday.
This relaxation of health protection rules comes as Europeans’ appetite for travel, curbed during two years of the pandemic, is gaining momentum. For the summer, the European air traffic monitoring body Eurocontrol forecasts up to 95% of the 2019 level, with bookings going well despite the war in Ukraine, the oil shock and inflation.