Airlines to allow passengers banned over masks back on planes

A United Airlines flight takes off at Chicago OÃâHare International Airport on July 6, 2020, in Chicago. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) Major airlines are allowing most passengers who were banned for violating mask rules back on planes after a federal judge struck down the national mask mandate on airplanes and mass transit this week.The mask mandate was issued by the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February 2021 when COVID-19 cases were soaring. Not long after, airlines began banning people in record numbers for refusing to wear masks and for harassing crew members who asked them to comply.Delta alone banned about 2,000 people.

Alaska placed 1,700 people on its own list, and United banned about 1,000. Southwest and American declined to say how many people were placed on their no-fly lists.RELATED: Mask mandates: Here's where face coverings are still enforced in public settingsNow that most airlines have made masks optional, here’s where the four largest stand on allowing mask violators back on flights:Like others, American Airlines said people who were refused flights because they wouldn’t mask will be allowed to fly with American again "in most cases.""In cases where an incident may have started with face mask non-compliance and escalated into anything involving something more serious, certainly assault or an assault on one of our team members or customers, those passengers are going to remain on our permanent internal refuse list and will never be allowed to travel with us again," Nate Gatten, American’s chief corporate and government affairs officer, said on an earnings call Thursday.American declined to say how many people it banned for not wearing.