Leading US airlines do not plan to force passengers to wear medical masks in flight and will focus on their sense of responsibility, CNN reported referring to copies of the new instructions of air carriers intended for flight attendants and pilots.

"Separate memos obtained by CNN that American Airlines (AAL) sent to its pilots and flight attendants show that customers may be denied boarding for not wearing a mask. But once on the plane "the face covering policy will become more lenient" and "the flight attendant's role is informational, not enforcement," the pilot memo reads. It was first obtained by Reuters," CNN reported.

An American Airlines flight attendant memo describes how they should deal with customers who do not comply with the policy: "Please encourage them to comply, but do not escalate further. Likewise, if a customer is frustrated by another customer's lack of face covering, please use situational awareness to de-escalate the situation."

United (UAL) makes exceptions for a variety of reasons including medical conditions. Its policy also points to avoiding confrontation. 

According to their statement, "if for some reason this policy causes a disturbance onboard, we've counseled our flight attendants to use their de-escalation skills, and they do have the flexibility to re-seat customers on the aircraft as needed."

JetBlue (JBLU) suggests workers at airports tell customers: "to help keep us all safe, customers and crewmembers are now required to wear face coverings." According to the airline, there will be "challenges" in enforcing its policy.

Passenger traffic in the US fell by almost 95% due to the pandemic.

An outbreak caused by a coronavirus disease was recorded at the end of 2019 in Central China and spread to most countries. The World Health Organization recognized it as a pandemic on March 11. All countries and territories were forced to take various emergency measures of a sanitary and epidemiological nature, which led to a deep international economic crisis. According to the IMF forecast, a decline of 3% will be recorded in the global economy this year.