Month: March 2022

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.

A group of 10 commercial airline pilots from six states filed suit Tuesday 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 endangers aviation safety. It’s the first legal challenge to the FTMM filed by airline workers.

Pilots filed the 61-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia just hours after the Senate voted 57-40 to repeal the mask mandate and one day after 17 members of Congress sued CDC in Kentucky. They charge CDC and its parent agency, the Department of Health & Human Services, with seven violations of the law and Constitution. The pilots, who work for four U.S. airlines, ask the court to vacate the mandate and permanently enjoin the federal government from ever issuing it again.

The father of a 4-year-old autistic Florida boy who was refused transportation Feb. 22 by American Airlines from Miami to Boston for a critical medical appointment charged four American employees today with conspiracy to interfere with the civil rights of the disabled who can’t medically tolerate wearing face masks. It’s believed to be the first case in the nation where individual airline workers have been named as defendants for their roles in banning the disabled from flying during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michael Seklecki Sr. of Lake Mary, Florida, filed a motion this morning with the federal court in Boston to add as individual defendants Peter Soares, American’s managing director of legal affairs; Irina Spence, a customer care manager in American’s Special Assistance Coordinators Department; Innolene “Doe,” a customer-service agent for American at Miami International Airport who refused to check his son and him in for their flight last month; and Misty “Roe,” a coordinator in American’s Special Assistance Coordinators Department who signed a letter denying Seklecki Sr. a mask exemption for a previous flight Nov. 10, 2021.