In the interest of keeping all the mask discussion in the Peanut Gallery, I will post a serious factual question here:
How strictly are Southwest’s flight attendants currently enforcing the mask requirement? In particular will someone who fears being near people not wearing masks be better off flying Southwest or Alaska or American or United?
As flight attendants say, we have choices when we fly. I would prefer to put my relatives on a flight where masks are required in practice rather than only in platitude. Others have different preferences but that is mine.
My direct experience is only with Southwest, but it would appear from what I saw, along with what I've read in forums and on social media, that enforcement is variable, seemingly dependent upon the individual crew's discretion. I had one "good" flight, where all passengers I saw were compliant and multiple announcements were made, and another where there were no announcements and multiple passengers left their masks around their necks for most of the flight. The former was early June and the latter was today, fyi, so this could also be representative of the general decline in mask wearing over that period. Alaska recently
doubled-down on their policy language, so in theory they might be the strictest with regards to enforcement. I have no plans to fly American or United as long as they refuse to block middle seats.