March 25, 2022
9 Flight Attendants Sue CDC to Terminate
Federal Transportation Mask Mandate
Complaint: Forced Masking Causes Dangerous
Conflicts Aboard Aircraft & Harms Workers’ Health
March 25, 2022
By LUCAS WALL
DENVER, Colorado – A group of nine flight attendants from six states filed suit March 24 against the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to strike down the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate, arguing forcing them to obstruct their normal breathing harms their health and being required to enforce the mandate endangers aviation safety as tens of thousands of passengers refuse to comply.
The nine plaintiffs work for Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, Southwest, and United. It’s the first legal challenge to the FTMM filed by flight attendants and the second by airline workers. Ten pilots filed a similar lawsuit last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Flight attendants filed the 61-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado since plaintiff Victoria Vasenden of Southwest Airlines is based at Denver International Airport and several others often work flights in and out of DEN.
“Masks impair our health and reduce flight safety,” said Vasenden of Reno, Nevada. “We are in planes and airports up to 18 hours a day with zero chance of fresh air. Physicians don’t wear masks that long. That’s assault on the brain, organs, and tissues of the human body. Yet we are expected to ensure all aspects of the flight remain safe, when masks clearly diminish our capacities.”
Like the pilots, the flight attendants charge CDC and its parent agency, the Department of Health & Human Services, with seven violations of the law and Constitution. The flight attendants ask Senior District Judge Marcia Krieger to vacate the mandate and permanently enjoin the two agencies from ever issuing it again.
The nine flight attendants express concern that CDC and HHS ignore that the mask mandate recklessly endangers aviation safety and security by causing numerous disruptions in the cabin – a fact most major U.S. airlines cited in a March 23 letter to President Biden calling for abolition of the FTMM. The International Air Transport Association has also urged Biden to get rid of the mask mandate as has the union representing Southwest Airlines’ flight attendants.
Tammy Gipp of Las Vegas, Nevada, is on medical leave from Frontier Airlines because she can’t tolerate wearing a mask.
“We have serious health and safety concerns regarding the FTMM, none of which were studied by the CDC or HHS prior to rushing the policy into effect,” she said. “There have been no studies conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration regarding how having a plane full of oxygen-deprived crew and passengers reduces emergency response time, particularly should a sudden decompression of the aircraft occur.”
Gipp also noted that the mask requirement causes “heated arguments and physical altercations often not only between passengers and crew members, but also among crew members ourselves with varying opinions, which poses more safety threats.”
The flight attendants’ case is at least the 19th lawsuit attacking the legality of the FTMM but the first by flight attendants who are commandeered by the federal government to enforce it.
“As flight attendants for major airlines, we have seen up close and personal the chaos in the sky created by the FTMM, with thousands of reports to the Federal Aviation Administration of ‘unruly’ passenger behavior since the FTMM took effect Feb. 1, 2021 – nearly all of which have been caused by incidents related to masks,” according to their complaint.
Lead plaintiff Alaina Trocano of Fort Myers, Florida, a flight attendant for American Airlines, said the Biden Administration’s fourth extension of the FTMM, announced March 10 and effective until April 18 despite CDC’s updated guidance that Americans in most counties should not wear masks, forced flight crews to take legal action.
“We’re supposed to ensure safety yet there are many of us who do not feel safe ourselves,” she said, referring to all the skirmishes on board created by passengers and flight attendants battling over face coverings. “Mask or be harassed. That’s not ensuring safety. That’s enabling hostility. Air travel should be the last place for conflict.”
Lisa Williams of Sarasota, Florida, who flies for American Airlines, said federal agencies have no business forcing her and colleagues to act as the mask police.
“They expect me to enforce their mandates and for me to exert that power over people, but they’ve taken action in violation of our legal and constitutional rights,” she said. “We filed this lawsuit because President Biden has signaled there’s no end to the masks. It’s been nearly two years and we are all sick of it, literally. Our goal to bring attention to the fact that we the people have the power, not the federal government.”
In their complaint, the nine flight attendants assert CDC has no legal authority to require that passengers and workers wear masks because Congress has never enacted such a law, the agency failed to observe the mandatory notice-and-comment procedure before ordering the FTMM, CDC did not submit the FTMM to Congress and the comptroller general before it took effect, the mandate applies to intrastate travel and overrides all 50 states’ no-mask policies in violation of the 10th Amendment, and the FTMM violates federal law prohibiting the mandatory use of any medical device (such as a face mask) unauthorized or approved under an Emergency Use Authorization by the Food & Drug Administration.
“I’m suing to get rid of the mask mandate because it’s long overdue. I am tired of doing something that has no purpose anymore,” said Laurie Parke of Clermont, Florida, who works for Delta Air Lines. “It feels like more of a control issue by government agencies then actually accounting for public health and safety. We are entitled to make our own health choices. Over the last two years, this issue has created more havoc on airplanes than anything else. It interferes with our ability to do our jobs.”
Parke said she gets headaches from prolonged breathing obstruction and it causes her anxiety.
“At times feel like I just can’t breathe having to cover my face 10-14 hours a day at work,” she said. “It is not our job to be the enforcers of this mask mandate; it is something that CDC bestowed upon us without consent. The Department of Defense and the airline industry have known since studies were performed in mid-2020 how safe the air quality is on airplanes. Our industry should have been the first in line to get rid of the masks, instead of the only sector in the nation left having to enforce this.”
Flight attendants’ jobs are designated safety-critical because they are responsible for ensuring cabin safety and security while in flight, according to the complaint.
“If there’s an emergency in the cabin, we are the first responders,” it states. “Face masks cause us numerous health problems including lightheadedness, dizziness, chest pain, overheating, perspiration, irritation, increase in stress, sore throat, fatigue, limited breathing capacity, reduced circulation in the limbs, headaches, weakened immune system, nausea, lung pain, brain fog, anxiety, inflammatory response, multiple upper respiratory disturbances, inflammation, sinus infection, cognitive dysfunction, malaise, coughing, and wheezing. All of the health problems mentioned above reduce our ability to ensure flight safety.”
Jeremy Ivanovskis of Plano, Texas, a flight attendant for American Airlines, said he’s been living with the nightmare of mandatory masking since American adopted it in Spring 2020, well before the FTMM took effect Feb. 1, 2021.
“All employees were given an ultimatum: no mask, no work,” he said. “But mask-wearing makes me physically ill, and airline employees have been weaponized by the federal government to enforce an unlawful mandate on passengers and each other. Flight crews and passengers need to assert our rights to refuse an emergency medical device never approved by the Food & Drug Administration. I’m extremely humbled to be joined by eight other brave, bold, and courageous colleagues who signed onto this court filing. Masks should be always be an individual choice, not a government dictate.”
The case is Trocano v. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, No. 22-cv-727, U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Download the docket.
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