Airline company prohibited to board passengers in cloth masks

One of the biggest airline companies of the Northern Europe, Finnish airline company Finnair prohibited to use on its flights cloth masks. Corresponding resolution was published on the carrier’s web-site.

Company referred to low efficiency of cloth masks in protection of the tourists against COVID-19 infection. With this regard it recommended to use only medical face masks and FFP masks of N95 standard. “From August 16th we will not accept cloth masks on our flights anymore. We accept medical face masks, respirator masks FFP2 or FFP3 with no valve with the same standard (N95). Please, remember that you should wear mask during entire flight”, – Finnair message said.

The declaration outlined that tourist should wear mask correctly: it should close the nose and mouth regardless the fact where passenger is located – in the airport or on the board. Passengers are allowed to take the mask off for short period of time when eating or drinking. Besides, tourists that have medical excuse in mask wearing are obliged to inform this fact to airport employees minimum 72 hours prior the departure. It has to do with the fact that Finland at present moment holds strict restrictions towards all not vaccinated and recovered travelers. From the other side those who presented certificate of vaccination/recovery are allowed to enter the country with no restrictions.

Finland admits all certificates of vaccination that show that their owner was vaccinated with vaccine approved by European Medicines Agency (EMA) or that make part of the World Health Organization’s list of urgent administration. It means that only the following vaccines are accepted as real proof of vaccination by Finnish authorities:
1. Pfizer/BioNTech
2. Moderna
3. AstraZeneca
4. Johnson & Johnson
5. Sinopharm
6. Sinovac
Finnair is not the only European airline company that requires from travelers to wear medical face masks. So German air carrier Lufthansa Group since February 2021 prohibited passengers and crew members to wear cloth masks. Medical face masks are a must for those who travels with Air France.