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There were almost no masks in sight around 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday. (Matt DeMario)
The airport released a statement on Monday saying ABIA encourages travelers to wear masks, in accordance with health advice issued by Austin Public Health and directs passengers to check mask status with their airline.
Major airlines Delta, Southwest, American, United, Frontier, and Alaska have said masks would no longer be required onboard all domestic and most international flights, noting that some cities, states and countries may still require masks in their airports.
What does the inside of ABIA look like now?
Richard Kane (left) decided to go without a mask when traveling from Austin this morning. (Matt DeMario)
Austinite Richard Kane flew to New Orleans for work on Wednesday morning, fully prepared to mask just like he did during his last flight in November. Kane said he wore his mask until he was about halfway through the TSA line but ultimately took it off when he realized the “vast majority” of people around him weren’t masking.
“I can’t say I’m one of those people that’s super anti-mask or anything but if you give me the choice, yeah, I’d prefer not to wear (a mask) assuming everyone is vaccinated and everyone has been following the other proper protocols,” Kane said.
The situation was about the same inside the plane, where Kane estimated about “10-20%” of people were wearing masks. Though he didn’t spend much time in the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, he didn’t notice any signage asking guests to mask.
Kane said he is immunocompromised due to diabetes but still felt safe to fly.
“That's something I have to watch out for but other than waiting in the security line, the Austin airport is so wide open,” Kane said. “I had COVID a couple of months ago, I’ve kind of been through that and I wasn’t too concerned with my trip today.”
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(Laura Figi/Austonia)
Kastle Systems, a property technology company, reports almost 62% of Austin metro offices were occupied as of March 30, a figure that jumped nearly 9% from the week before then. It's higher than what's seen in Dallas and Houston and even metros on the coast.
This return to the office in Austin and elsewhere is being driven in part by big tech.
For example, some Google employees returned to the office months ago. Last month, Google said it expected most workers to return to offices three days a week and have two days of remote work by this month.
Starting next week, Apple will ease out of remote work by starting a hybrid schedule that requires two in-office days weekly and tacks on another in late May.
Reporting from the Wall Street Journal noted that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other leadership at the company work from Hawaii, Cape Cod and Europe though workers made a return to the office on March 28.
This increased office activity means downtown Austin is bustling once again for office workers, influencers and people looking for entertainment. TikTokers are pointing to their favorite dining spots like the Fareground Food Hall. Castle Hill Fitness just brought back weekly workouts for yoga, dance and cardio. The Paramount Theatre is hosting a comedy festival this month while venues like ACL Live and Stubb's Bar-B-Q have regular shows slated for the spring and summer.
This liveliness is only the start. With tower announcements and leases from giants like Meta and TikTok pouring into downtown, there's bound to be even more activity in and outside the office in the coming months and years.
Sixth of Guadelupe will lease all 33 of its commercial floors to Facebook parent company Meta.
A February study from the Pew Research Center shows 60% feel less connected to their coworkers now, showing a want for back to office work. Still, a majority, 61%, say they are choosing not to go into their workplace.
Andrew Brodsky, a professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, says labor market conditions are favorable to employees at this point in time.
In the case employees don't want to return to the office, they can find a company that will allow remote work.
“Part of what organizations are struggling with is that some employees really want to come back to the office because they like that collegiality, they’re much more productive in the office and other ones want to just continue working virtually,” Brodsky said. “So there’s a little bit of conflict from two sides about how to remediate that.”
Different incentives, such as Google reimbursing workers for a subscription to e-scooter maker Unagi or allowing hybrid schedules, could be part of the solution for companies to get employees back in the office and fill newly-leased buildings.
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(Laura Figi/Austonia)
The new risk-based guidelines are aligned with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention metrics and include three levels, in which the community risk level is currently low. COVID cases have been the lowest in the pandemic since last week, although Monday saw an uptick in positive cases with at least 100 traced to SXSW.
At the current low level, precautions such as mask-wearing and social distancing are optional when gathering, dining and shopping for both vaccinated and at-risk individuals. This further aligns with the city lifting COVID orders last week for the first time since March 2020.
Here are the stages:
The levels will be determined using a combination of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population in the past seven days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past seven days.
“We continue to adapt our response as we enter a new phase of this pandemic,” said Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County Health Authority. “While we enjoy the progress we’ve made, we should remember that this isn’t over yet; the potential for new variants still poses a threat.”
