The new guidance comes as airlines have had to cancel thousands of flights in the last week.
The periods the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday are welcome news for airlines. The health agency says that if people are -positive and have no symptoms, they can now isolate for five days instead of 10, and they don’t need a negative test to end that isolation period, but must continue to wear masks for another five days. The new guidance comes as airlines have had to in the last week, in part because COVID infections left them with a shortage of crew members. The airline industry had lobbied for the shortened isolation period, arguing that vaccines and other mitigating measures are widely available, and that the 10-day window worsened personnel shortages. But Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, raised some concerns, saying in a statement, “If any business pressures a worker to return to work before they feel better we will make clear it is an unsafe work environment, which will cause a much greater disruption than any ‘staffing shortages.
