It's a typical Friday afternoon at Vienna International Airport. Numerous vacationers are waiting at the gates for departure for their weekend vacation, business travelers are waiting for their flights home. Almost without exception, passengers wear masks, although not all of them wear the FFP2 masks required by the Austrian government.

But then the travelers get off a plane coming from Cologne/Bonn via a gangway. The "mask image" changes abruptly, because the vast majority of passengers coming from Germany free themselves from mouth and nose protection immediately after leaving the passenger boarding bridge. Only a few had worn the FFP2 mask prescribed by Austria and if they did: A felt 90 percent had removed the obviously unpleasant part from their face.

The result is surprised looks from the departing passengers who are waiting to board. Of course, a young lady took the initiative and loudly pointed out to the travelers coming from Cologne/Bonn that FFP2 masks are compulsory here in Vienna at the airport. Only in very few cases did this result in the surgical mask being put on again (hardly anyone had FFP2). However, the vast majority ignored the hint and continued on towards baggage claim without a mask. Even police officers who were on a routine patrol were not interested in the Cologne passengers without masks.

But a man said he had to instruct the young lady. There would only be a mask requirement on airplanes, but not in terminals. Karl Lauterbach abolished this. He would be German and the German regulations would apply to him. A heated discussion developed about the fact that Austria is an independent country and that one had to find out about the current Corona regulations before the trip.

Luckily, the young woman had spent money on priority boarding because her flight was called for boarding and she wanted to be one of the first to board. This ended the briefly emotional discussion. By the way, not all crew members of the Polish airline, which was traveling in the wet lease, wore FFP2 masks on the plane. Some flight attendants prefer to use surgical masks, even though Austria has actually been draconically prescribing FFP2 masks for many months.

This "incident", which is actually completely meaningless, shows once again that the Austrian Ministry of Health is very good at writing regulations that are sometimes difficult to understand, but the implementation has not worked to this day. The ignorance of many travellers, who more or less meticulously adhere to the current Corona regulations in their home country for fear of a ticket, but think abroad that the local regulations are not relevant for them, can unfortunately be attributed to almost any nationality . The Cologne/Bonn flight is just one example from everyday life, because it causes confusion among passengers that, for example, in Germany no masks are required in the terminal, but in Austria FFP2 masks are even required. The Ministry of Health would be well-advised to join the increasing standardization of mask abolition in order to avoid such incidents. A small overview of where you have to wear a mask in selected states and where not provided at this link.