Qantas coronavirus rules: Masks to be compulsory on Melbourne flights

Qantas chief Alan Joyce wears a face mask on board a flight last month.

Qantas and Jetstar will make mask use mandatory for passengers on all flights to and from Melbourne from Thursday, and say the policy could extend to other routes where there is evidence of COVID-19 spreading in the community.

The merits of compulsory mask wearing on planes has divided health experts but the measure has been enforced by airlines in the United States and Europe, and made mandatory on international repatriation flights to Australia.

Regional Express (Rex) has been the only Australian domestic airline to make masks compulsory, while Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin have provided masks to passengers and recommended they wear them.

Qantas Group medical director Ian Hosegood told a hearing of the federal Senate select committee on COVID-19 on Tuesday that masks would be made compulsory from Thursday on Qantas and Jetstar flights in and out of Melbourne, in line with rules set to take effect in the Victorian capital and the neighbouring Mitchell Shire that require everyone over the age of 12 to wear masks outside their homes.

Dr Hosegood said there was public "resistance" to wearing masks on fights between destinations that did not have the same level of community transmission present in Melbourne.

"Our approach to masks is that we strongly recommend that passenger wear them, but where there is no active cases in the community and flights are travelling between those locations, it’s very difficult to take a position that mandates masks when we have a lot of resistance to that," he said.

"So our position at the moment is based on risk."

Dr Hosegood added that Qantas was closely watching for any evidence of community transmission in Sydney and would make masks compulsory on flights from any destination where it believed there was a risk of passengers unwittingly carrying the virus.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Virgin said the airline would move its distribution of masks to passengers prior to boarding for flights to and from Victoria, and will ask them to wear face coverings or masks on board "in line with the Victorian Government’s public health order".

Flight Attendants' Association of Australia secretary Teri O’Toole said her union wanted masks to be made mandatory for passengers on all flights to minimise the risk of transmission to cabin crew.

Professor Lyn Gilbert, an infectious disease expert who chairs the Infection Control Expert Group advising the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, said the benefit of wearing masks on flights from a destination without community transmission was only "marginal".

"The risk is very low on an aircraft but you’re coming into contact with crew and other people," Professor Gilbert said. "So if you’re coming from an area with community transmission it seems reasonable to wear one."

Australian Medical Association vice president Chris Zappala said that masks should be used in all situations where physical distancing was not possible, which included during a flight or while getting on or off a plane.

"If that means that we need to mandate it, we’re comfortable with mandating it," Dr Zappala said. "There’s nothing wrong and, indeed, it’s perhaps appropriate here to be overly cautious."

Dr Zappala said he was recently on a flight within Queensland and estimated that only 15 to 20 of the about 170 passengers on board were wearing masks. "So we’ve got a long way to go", he said.

Airlines have moved to assure passengers that aircraft are a low-risk environment for COVID-19 transmission because the cabin air is frequently filtered and replaced with outside air. However Dr Hosegood said while the risk of transmission was low, it was not "zero or impossible”.

Flights to and from Melbourne have slowed to a trickle since the city was plunged back into stage three restrictions nearly two weeks ago in an attempt to contain an outbreak of COVID-19.

Melbourne Airport had only 11 domestic arrivals and five domestic departures scheduled for Wednesday.