Following All Rules, Man Wore No Face Mask During Flight. Here’s How

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It’s behavior like this that’s going to ruin it for everyone.

A man from England wore no face mask for pretty much his entire 4-hour flight from the U.K. to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. It wasn’t a matter of refusing to, like what you hear on the news so often nowadays. In fact, his method was 100% according to the rules.

He simply sslloowwllyy ate a whole can of Pringles potato snacks during the entire flight.

Michael Richards, age 41, lives in Huddersfield, a town in West Yorkshire. He and his family were scheduled to be on an easyJet flight to go on their vacation. He’s apparently not a fan of face masks; he says they’re uncomfortable (poor baby!). So he devised a plan where he didn’t have to wear one.

easyJet’s rule is that masks must be worn at all times, unless you’re actively eating or drinking. So Richards decided to see how long he could make an entire tube of Pringles last. He managed to eat all 100 chips in the tube during the entire course of his 4 hour flight, which calculates into 2.5 minutes per chip.

He said he only wore his mask for about 10 minutes in total; when he went to use the lavatory and to get his carry on bag down from the overhead.

He boasted about his feat on Facebook (as one does), and the response he got was mixed; some applauded  his “good idea” (#rolleyes), while others said they were glad they were not on that plane.

The law in England is that you must wear a face mask on public transport (that include planes, airports, trains and train stations), “unless there is a reasonable excuse for removing it.”

When asked for a statement, an easyJet spokesperson said:

“Passengers receive clear communications before they travel and via announcements on board to ensure they are aware that, in line with new guidelines, they are required to wear a face mask on board except when eating or drinking.

“Whilst our cabin crew will always try to be vigilant to ensure that passengers comply with the requirement to wear a mask, no issues were raised with the crew about this passenger’s behaviour during the flight.

“It is the responsibility of all on board to adhere to these measures for the health and safety of everyone on board.”

Which means that as far as they’re concerned, he’s off the hook, since he technically followed the rules and no one complained about what he was doing.

This is one of those examples where someone followed the rules to a T, but totally ignored the spirit of the rules (or, in this case, law).

The ability to take your mask off to eat or drink while on a plane is not supposed to be an excuse to keep your mask off for the entire journey. It means you can take a sip or two of your drink and put your mask back on, or even eat your whole meal (which typically shouldn’t take more than 20 or 30 minutes), and put your mask back into place.

Richards said on his Facebook that he’s not anti-mask, and typically wears them, but this was, “just a bit of a light-hearted go at the mask subject.” Meanwhile, if he happened to have coronavirus and was asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, he just exposed everyone around him for 4 hours, thanks to his “light-hearted go.”

Of course, you know others have done the same thing; their efforts just didn’t make it onto social media. But all it’ll take is a couple of people nearby to get the virus and make the airline(s) aware and you wonder what kind of restrictions they’ll put on eating on planes.

Feature Photo: Pixnio

#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary