semifrequentflyer

Honestly, I'm afraid to fly after my child turns 2 for the fear of being tossed off the plane like a sack of potatoes if he refuses to wear a mask the entire flight. I'm sure there is a huge difference between a 1 year and 364 day old and a 2 year old in their ability to tolerate a mask...

757FO

As other have pointed out, it will vary from crew-to-crew. My advice, follow the rules. Debating if they are ridiculous or not won't change the circumstances during your flight, but it is a quick way to get removed from a flight or worse. Hopefully we will see some easing of restrictions in the next 4-12 weeks.

eng3

I've seen plenty of other 2yr olds able to keep their mask on for the whole flight (except eating). I recall a flight where we had to turn off the runway and head back to the gate because a child refused to wear his seat belt and the mother would use profanities talking to her child while referring to the FA who kept trying to get the mother to get the seat belt on the child. Eventually, after the pilot made a few announcements, the child complied and we went on our way. Ofcourse the mother said "I'm never flying this airline again".

As for the OP, I've flown throughout the pandemic and when eating, I take my mask off when I start eating and put it back on after I finish eating. I usually finish eating in less than 10min. I've never gotten a complaint. Overall, most FA's don't do much for enforcement, they make the requirement announcements and then perhaps go after the overt people trying to not wear their mask at all. Ofcourse, there are outliers, some don't care at all, some make multiple lengthy announcements and will go around reminding everyone who doesn't have their nose covered. I've noticed the same on other airlines including in europe.

cmd320

While the directive may not be airline specific, where it comes to the policing of the policy during food/beverage consumption, UA seems to be on a very different level from most of the others.

At least in premium cabins flying on AA, B6, and DL, I'd say it's relatively common for passengers to remove their masks, or drop them below the chin during food/beverage service consumption without re-masking between individual sips/bites. I've yet to see a crew on any of these airlines ask the passenger to replace their mask during food/beverage consumption. Things might be different in the back, I'm not really sure. YMMV.

HNLbasedFlyer

Been on plenty of UA flights with the same

Doppy

On a recent flight there was a guy (wearing sunglasses the whole flight) who needed to be told twice before we even left the gate to pull his mask up, and of course that was just the beginning of it - he also had a hard time complying with seatbelt requirements, including the polaris shoulder strap for takeoff/landing. Fortunately he slept the whole way or who knows what kind of other tricks he would have pulled out.

I feel bad for FAs who have to enforce policies on people who are intentionally being difficult.

semifrequentflyer

My intention was not to say that all 2 year olds are unable to wear a mask, because I'm sure many are able to (There can be a large difference between a 2 and 2.99 year old). I was just pointing out in my situation I don't believe that my child at 1 year and 364 days will wake up the next day and become fully mask compliant. I would imagine many other parents would feel the same way. Just making a point that room for flexibility may not be a bad thing for issues that are not so cut and dry.
Anyway for me it's a moot point, because at least until 9/13/2021, the rules are the rules.

WineCountryUA

As has been mentioned, the mask rules while inflight are requirements by governmental regulators and as such UA is required to enforce them. The appropriateness / validity of such requirements is not within UA's purview and neither are they in scope for this forum. Please let's restrict discussion to what UA and UA employees are doing / can control.

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

DELee

Well, FWIW, UA's T-5 days before departure e-mail says its federal law:
So it must be true.

David

mduell

On my flight today the flight attendants were persistently but discretely enforcing the mask mandate.

United and their staff may get some relief coming, with DOT now facing bipartisan calls to relax the mask mandate on airlines and other forms of transportation.

Kacee

Yeah the App says I have 13 UA segments in F this year, and I've only seen two instances of UA FAs policing mask usage (one of them at my request, before vaccines were available). Neither involved drinking or eating.

I do feel the overall attitude is more relaxed now, which I support, but you never know when an FA is going to power trip over this, or indeed, something entirely different.

fatlasercat

We have one of those 2-year olds. She is very happy to put on the mask and wear it for about 5 minutes... Our strategy is to focus on the period from boarding to takeoff, risk of being thrown off substantially decrease after that (although it would probably be more painful).

All in all, 5 UA flights so far during the federal mask mandate. Mask for the toddler is on an off during the flight and we had a single FA make a comment, but she never came back check again.

econ

This has been my experience as well for the flights that I've been on. While some crews make more announcements than others, I've found that as long as I'm pretty regularly stuffing my face with food/drink, they haven't said anything.

I only recall seeing a FA remind someone individually to put their mask on twice, with one of those two people being an off-duty pilot.

eng3

I did notice early on, when "everyone" just started wearing masks (most passengers, FA's) I noticed zero pilots were wearing masks. At least in the terminals that I walked through. Maybe just a coincidence.

TomMM

Aren't there reports of DL FAs walking down the aisle with a sign informing passengers to put their masks on?