The Transportation Security Administration will extend its face mask requirement for travelers through the summer.
All those traveling throughout the United States at airports, on commercial aircraft, on buses, and on rail systems will have to keep wearing masks through Sept. 13, the agency said Friday.
TSA’s initial face mask requirement went into effect Feb. 1 with a scheduled expiration of May 11, following an order from the Biden administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that required masks for travelers.
“The federal mask requirement throughout the transportation system seeks to minimize the spread of COVID-19 on public transportation,” Darby LaJoye, TSA’s acting administrator, said in a statement Friday. “Right now, about half of all adults have at least one vaccination shot and masks remain an important tool in defeating this pandemic.”
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Friday’s update maintains previously instituted exemptions to the face mask requirement for travelers under the age of 2 and those with specific disabilities.
TSA also noted Friday that federal guidelines continue to require travelers to wear face masks, socially distance, and wash their hands or use hand sanitizer, even as the CDC loosened its travel recommendations earlier in April.
The CDC updated its domestic travel guidance April 2 to say that people who are fully vaccinated can travel safely. The agency had previously discouraged travel and recommended that those traveling get tested before doing so. The CDC continues to discourage travel among those who have not been fully vaccinated.
Before the national face mask order for travelers took effect, airlines and many airports required face masks for travelers, some of whom became disorderly over the rule.
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On Jan. 13, the Federal Aviation Administration’s leader, Steve Dickson, signed an order providing for stricter enforcement of federal rules against unruly airline passengers. The agency cited an increase in “disrupted flights with threatening or violent behavior” from passengers refusing to comply with airlines’ mask orders.
