During boarding/unboarding, sure, but during the actual flight when the aircrafts intake/recirculation system is running you're getting much better air quality than basically any building you'd be in. “Tiny steel tube with hundreds of others” is a _very_ misleading statement.
In-flight is quite risky: long-haul flights have much more covid transmission than short flights, which should not happen if transmission only occurred during takeoff and landing.
Interesting, although it's worth noting that the study specifically calls out that “Third, we cannot exclude other risks in air travel beyond in-flight risks, e.g., queuing for security or customs or boarding the plane, as well as the waiting time on the runway or transfers to terminals in public buses”.
(To the people who downvoted that comment: shame on you)
The advance air circulation system doesn't help that much with the lady coughing and blowing her nose right next to me and the filthy child touching every seat armrest as he walks down the aisle.
If the comment said that, I wouldn't have said anything, but it repeated nonsense about the density of people sealed in a metal tube, which is more or less nonsense.
I guess people really don't like putting something on their face. Nobody advices only washing hands and being generally healthy against getting STIs; the advice is blocking the pathogens in the first place, I'm not sure why our lungs don't deserve as much protection.
(plus masking makes the air more humid which helps with the dry air I feel)
Please wear an N95 when you lock yourself in a tiny steel tube with hundreds of others. If not for your safety, do it for others.