On Monday, Malta also no longer required the wearing of masks on board all flights to Malta. Along with hospitals and retirement homes, commercial aircraft were the last place where the government still required the wearing of mouth and nose protection.

On request, the Maltese Ministry of Health stated, among other things: "As during the COVID-19 pandemic, Malta will follow the advice of the ECDC and therefore the health authorities will no longer oblige passengers on flights to Malta to wear masks from Monday".

This means that the number of EU countries that insist on wearing mouth and nose protection on board commercial aircraft is getting smaller and smaller. In Germany and Austria it is currently not foreseeable that the recommendation of the European Commission could be adopted in the short term. The Alpine republic in particular thinks it knows better than other countries and the EU and is the only country in the world to insist on wearing FFP2 masks. This is the case at Vienna Airport, for example increasingly ignored by arriving passengers. The same applies on board flights Implementation of the decree of the Minister of Healthwho intends to keep the rules in place until at least July 8, 2022, now more of a farce. However, aviation is not the only place where Austrian regulations are increasingly being ignored, because too in long-distance buses is it "illegal" to go maskless.

The abolition of the mask requirement by the Republic of Malta only applies if there is no opposing notam from another state. If two orders from different states contradict each other, there is no clear regulation which takes precedence. This could soon become a serious issue on flights to Austria, because the Alpine Republic insists on FFP2 masks on all flights to/from Austria. There are now notams to the contrary, in which states announce that the mask requirement from/to their state has been lifted on all flights. The Austrian authorities could not answer what applies in such a case. Corresponding inquiries were not answered despite repeated reminders.