IAH-OIL-TRASH

So you believe laws/regulations don't change based on what you've experienced on previous flights? I guess with that sort of logic, back in the day you would have posted "I was able to smoke on the previous 8 flights, now the FA is making up rules about no smoking on airplanes".

The rule is aimed at someone who has a drink or food in front of them and takes a noticeable bit of time between bites or sips. The idea is to prevent someone not wanting to wear a mask have a coke sitting in front of them and then claim "I am drinking a coke" when the last sip they took was 15 minutes ago.

J_Stroming

I have heard this several times on United flights recently, and it always gets chuckles and eye-rolls from the people around me. I wouldn’t expect the people on Flyertalk to realize how silly this sounds, but I think most other people do. This can be (and is) interpreted wildly different from FA to FA.

How long between bites is acceptable? Should I put the mask up while chewing? Should I be kicked off the flight if I forgot once? Twice? LOL.

pruss2ny

Thx for the education...i was flashing back to random announcements about turning off cell phones and how they had equipment on board telling them “4 cell phones are still on”

i also appreciate the FA’s who try to apply a forgiving execution of this mandate...it’s their space and i know dealing with the passengers can be impossible... but having an FA observe the cabin during meal to ensure compliance was oddly creepy

absolutely i believe the world is impervious to change. Thanks for useful engagement


alternatively my post could have been read as admission that i was substituting anecdotal experience for actual research...but this mandate as federal law seemed iffy

jmastron

I don’t think the logic is all that hard to understand if you’re trying to understand it. The purpose of the mask being required is to filter your exhalations. Taking it down as you bring food or drink into your mouth means you’re not probably exhaling at that moment (I just had a snack to test out that theory :-). But the other times while you’re chewing, swallowing, and contemplating the next bite you are almost certainly breathing in and out. So yes, while you’re chewing.

And yes, it also addresses the savor-a-pack-of-nuts-the-whole-flight folks.

The rule could be “mask on when you breathe out” I suppose, but I’m sure some would find a way to turn that into another game of contrarian boundary pushing.

Kacee

Hopefully that's how it will be enforced by UA (and other carriers).

Doppy

I appreciate that United is now using the "bites and sips" language consistently. That should have always been the guidance, even before the CDC stepped in.

Since everyone gets served at the same time on a plane, allowing everyone to take their masks off while eating or drinking is a bad idea. Given the level of service on most flights these days, it's not that hard to wear a mask between bites.

Whyme

I am a United FA. The guidance we have received is that the "between bites and sips" language means exactly that. You take a bite, you put your mask back on immediately. You remove it to take another bite, then put it back on immediately. You wear the mask while chewing and swallowing. The mask is off only during the moment you are actively placing the bite in your mouth. That's how United management interprets the directive and that's what they have instructed the flight attendants to tell the passengers. I thought I expressed this in an earlier post, but the person I was replying to misinterpreted my post to mean you can keep your mask off while eating and drinking, and replace it when finished. That is no longer the case.

I think it's stupid and silly. But I didn't make the directive. I didn't interpret the directive. I am, however, being paid to make a whole bunch of announcements about it, ask customers to comply with it, report non-compliance to the captain, and write reports to the company when they don't comply with it. Don't blame the flight attendants for doing their job correctly. Blame the federal government or blame Covid, depending on your preference.

Kacee

That's got to be awfully difficult to enforce. I would envision lots of resistance.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Thanks for posting. I hope you continue to provide us first hand experience/knowledge. As the customers, we try to guess what FAs are thinking/doing, but reality checks from time to time really help us.

Your post really drives home UA's interpretation of the rule which, hopefully, helps some of us understand what is expected. I'm pretty sure there's a variety of interpretations out there as to what between "bites or sips" means (time-wise). On the 4 flights I've taken since the new directive, I've stayed closer to UA's interpretation.

Doppy

It's all about whether you get passengers that want to be cooperative or not. It's not a hard policy to follow and I haven't seen any issues with it on my flights. On the other hand, my parents were on a flight pre-CDC mandate where another pax in FC continuously refused requests to wear a mask for most of the flight, and there did not appear to be any formal warning or write-up. Somehow things escalated at baggage claim and he threatened to get violent, resulting in a conversation with the airport police.

An explanation of the "bites and sips" policy should start at the gate, along with enforcement. People who don't want to follow the policy are then free to leave the airport rather than learn about it for the first time on the plane, and then have the choice to avoid subjecting themselves to the extraordinarily minor inconvenience of having to pull down a mask briefly between sips of whisk(e)y.

People who aren't following the rules before they get on a plane probably aren't going to get any better once they're in the air. For whatever reason(s), once people get on a plane their propensity for bad behavior increases several-fold.

Kacee

Based on my own personal efforts, I don't agree that putting your mask on to chew and swallow is "not a hard policy to follow." I think many will find it objectionable and unfortunately I suspect we're going to see more conflict onboard. It reminds me a bit of the overzealous rules imposed in various parts of California (such as shutting outdoor playgrounds) which wind up being ultimately counterproductive. When laws become unreasonable, people lose respect for the law.

These comments come from someone who has somewhere north of 100 flights since March of last year and has been rigorous about my own mask compliance and asking FAs to follow up when I see people who are obviously not following and/or are clearly gaming the rules.

pruss2ny

You can be vigilant about covid.
You can comply with wearing a mask.
You can advocate for safe actions so as to not put others at risk.
You can do all of this AND STILL think that the federal government mandating the wearing of a mask between bites/sips at risk of prosecution is at best a slippery slope.

Hawkeyefan

Did you pull the mask out of your mouth after each bite, while sucking the food thru the fabric?

bocastephen

One of the key problems we have with United service is while you are enforcing the policy, which I agree with, somewhere between 30-90% of your colleagues are either not enforcing the policy, enforcing it with unnecessary threats and intimidation, or enforcing some hybrid policy that sits somewhere between the management directive and what they think it means or feel like doing based on how they woke up that morning.

If this, and other policies, were uniformly enforced without variance, a lot of customers would be much happier, less stressed, and everyone would know what to expect.

WineCountryUA

Seems a rather wide uncertainity bounds, any cite for this?