![Airlines want to drop COVID-19 travel precautions. Is now the right time?](https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2022/03/25/82c8676b-3281-4f0e-ab8b-bf9297f6c7da/thumbnail/1200x630/4a9c8242e2405baa2c1e58ca529f023f/gettyimages-1264114001.jpg)
Airlines want to drop COVID-19 travel precautions. Is now the right time?
CBSN
After one of the most turbulent periods in air travel history — loaded with new rules and regulations and plenty of unruly and disruptive passengers — airlines want to jettison COVID-era safety precautions for flights.
The CEOs of the nation's leading airlines this week sent a letter to the White House urging the Biden administration to rescind pre-departure testing and vaccination requirements for international travelers and drop the federal mask mandate on flights, arguing that the measures are no longer necessary as coronavirus infections drop sharply across the U.S.
The precautions "are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment," they said in the letter.
![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250214202746.jpg)
Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a high-stakes meeting at this year's Munich Security conference to discuss the Trump administration's efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Vance said the U.S. seeks a "durable" peace, while Zelenskyy expressed the desire for extensive discussions to prepare for any end to the conflict.
![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250214133557.jpg)
Washington — The Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, the nation's largest employer, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who hadn't yet gained civil service protection - potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers.
![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250214133528.jpg)
It was Labor Day weekend 2003 when Matt Scribner, a local horse farrier and trainer who also competes in long-distance horse races, was on his usual ride in a remote part of the Sierra Nevada foothills — just a few miles northeast of Auburn, California —when he noticed a freshly dug hole along the trail that piqued his curiosity.