Being in a high risk category, I waited many months before flying commercially. or using any form of public transportation But, since I think the world of Southwest Airlines (only), my wife and I trusted that since Southwest reduced their capacity to 67% (not occupying middle seats) and cleaning protocols that it was time to support Southwest and travel. So, last weekend we flew on a 2.5+ hour flight. The ground and flight crew announced that masks were required (except while eating and drinking). Our experience on the flight was that the flight attendants did not enforce the mask rule. We were in the exit row with no seat in from of the window seat and a group of five young men sat in all five of the available seats in the row in front of us (with no empty seats). As soon as the flight attendants sat down for takeoff, those five passengers gradually used their masks less and less to the point of not even pretending to have them near their faces by mid-flight. And, most critically, at no point did any flight attendant during many passings question why these five passengers not wear their masks. I only give these as an example as there were several others on the flight that we could see who were also not being vigilant about mask wearing. I reported this to Southwest customer relations who of course obligatorily apologized via phone and email. But ,in short, these passengers had no reason not to wear their masks (eating, drinking, conditions, etc.) yet didn't and no flight attendant felt compelled to even question them. I post this not to complain about Southwest, or even the less competent flight attendants on our flight. I do so only to warn other higher risk passengers that it's just not as safe as it should be to travel via public transportation, even on a great airline like Southwest, at this point. We will stick to using our own transportation or just not traveling until there have been significant improvements in the efforts to not only have rules but also to enforce them.
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