The CEO of Southwest Airlines is questioning the need to wear masks on planes to guard against COVID-19.
The remarks by Southwest’s Gary Kelly came Wednesday during a hearing in front of the Senate Commerce Committee.
"I think the case is very strong that masks don't add much, if anything, in the air cabin environment," Kelly said, according to CNN. "It is very safe and very high quality compared to any other indoor setting."
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker agreed.
"An aircraft is the safest place you can be," he said. "It's true of all of our aircrafts — they all have the same HEPA filters and air flow."
After the hearing, American Airlines attempted to clarify Parker's remarks. It claimed that his agreement with Kelly was on the point about the quality of the air in planes’ cabins, and not about mask requirements, according to CNN.
The news network noted the federal government requires air travelers to wear masks on planes.
According to Fox News, Kelly further stated: "The statistics I recall is that 99.97% of airborne pathogens are captured by the [high efficiency particulate air] filtering system, and it's turned over every two or three minutes."
Meanwhile, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and several other Democrats in the House of Representatives have expressed their support for a federal COVID-19 vaccine requirement for air travel.
"Prediction: we can go from 60% Americans vaxxed to 80% if we require vaccines to fly,'' Swalwell posted on Twitter.
Rep. Kaialiʻi Kahele, D-Hawaii, responded to Swalwell's post a few hours later.
''@RitchieTorres has been calling for this since August & I support it,'' Kahele tweeted, linking to legislation addressing Swalwell's concerns by New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, a fellow Democrat.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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