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Airline executives ask Biden to end COVID-19 mask mandates for travel

Yahoo Finance Live's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi report that airline executives have reached out to President Biden asking for COVID-19 mask mandates for travel to end.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Could the last bastion of mask mandates go away over the next month or so? At least, that's what US airline CEOs would like, executives writing a letter to the federal government and asking for the mask mandates to end. They say, quote, "Now is the time for the administration to sunset federal transportation travel restrictions, including the international pre-departure testing requirements and the federal mask mandate, that are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment."

And they point out sort of the irony here that there are other mass gathering spots, sports arenas, notably, that aren't requiring masks at this point. Also, they point out that the COVID cases are going down. And yes, we have another variant, BA.2, but that, you know, this is not predicted by many experts to be terribly severe. So all of this is an interesting, again, marker of where we are in the pandemic.

BRIAN SOZZI: Well, it's likely good to see, Julie. You know, you make planes, I think, a little bit safer here. This has been a challenging aspect of flying during the pandemic. But I will add this, too. Masks might go away, but these airline carriers are dealing with, really, for some time, likely lingering effects, notably their costs of the pandemic, the cost to employ pilots, other workers on planes. I mean, they're going through the roof. I think that Alaska Airlines-- we'll talk to them a little bit later on in the show-- raising the pay for stewardesses, the double pay just to keep them happy, keep them employed. And it's just an amazing time to be in that business.

JULIE HYMAN: Indeed, and we're going to speak to the Alaska Airlines CEO coming up-- CFO coming up in the next hour.

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