British Airways will no longer have a face mask policy on eligible flights from Wednesday, 16th March. The airline's apparent mask mandate U-turn came quickly after Jet2 and TUI Airways announced they were removing masking rules.
Face masks will still be compulsory on routes where the destination country requires them to be worn. The United States has a federal face mask mandate that has been extended until April 18.
Italy may include where passengers must wear a protective FFP2 mask instead of a cloth face covering. Passengers travelling with BA may have to wear a mask in certain countries where face mask rules are still in place.
British Airways said at the time that it had no immediate plans to lift its face mask requirement as it was required to adopt the rules of many countries.
The British government put the airline industry on notice that it needed to review masking rules regularly.
Keeping our colleagues and customers safe at all times is our number one priority, and during the Pandemic we followed the advice of the UK Government and Health Protection Agencies, introducing new measures to make sure we were able to continue to operate.
The legal requirement to wear a face covering has been removed in England and Wales, and for the past few weeks we have been considering our position.
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Monday that the government's policy wasn't about to change despite an increase in infections.
On the same day that BA lifts its face mask mandate, Heathrow Airport will also switch to a face mask optional policy. Transfer passengers from around the world might expect compulsory mask wearing, so the airport kept its mandate.
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