Travellers shed their masks and cheered as pilots and conductors announced that a federal judge in Florida had struck down a national mask mandate on airplanes and mass transit. “Feel free to burn them at will,” a New Jersey conductor told passengers boarding a commuter train Tuesday, drawing light laughter. On the flip side, a mother onboard a plane with a baby was “very, very angry.”

The judge’s decision Monday freed airlines, airports, and mass transit systems to make their own decisions about mask requirements, resulting in a mix of responses. Major airlines and airports in places like Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City quickly switched to a mask-optional policy.

But the ruling still gave those entities the option to keep their mask rules in place, resulting in directives that could vary from city to city. New York City was one of the few holdouts to continue requiring masks in its airports and on its public transit system.

Some travellers found the hasty toppling of rules confusing and others were angry they weren’t given any warning, especially since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continued to recommend masking on transportation.

Brooke Tansley, a television producer and former Broadway performer, boarded a flight with her not-yet-eligible-to-be-vaccinated 4-year-old and 8-month-old only to learn that the mask mandate had ended mid-flight.

“Here we are, trapped in the sky with our 8-month-old unmasked baby (you can’t actually mask a baby that young) under the supposition that everyone who can be masked would be masked, and the flight 325 crew has taken our choices away from us,” she said in a tweet. “Very, very angry about this.”

The response was far from universal, though. On a Southwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Nashville Monday evening, the change to optional status was incorporated into the safety announcements, prompting murmurs and fist pumps from some passengers and no audible complaints. Still, roughly half the passengers continued to wear protective masks during the hour-and-10-minute flight.

A video showed some passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight cheering and applauding as they took off their masks upon hearing an announcement that they were now optional. One man could be seen happily twirling his mask on his finger.

In a 59-page lawsuit ruling, US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its authority in issuing the original health order on which the TSA directive was based. She also said the order was fatally flawed because the CDC didn’t follow proper rulemaking procedures.

Mizelle, an appointee of Donald Trump, said the only remedy was to throw out the mandate for the entire country because it would be impossible to end it only for the people who objected in the lawsuit.

The White House said the mask order “is not in effect at this time” and called the court decision disappointing and the Justice Department declined to comment on whether it would seek an emergency stay to block the judge’s order. The CDC also declined to comment.

US Travel welcomed the decision, calling it a “further step toward endemic management of COVID,” and also continued to call for the federal administration to also immediately end pre-departure testing for vaccinated inbound international passengers, which it says “discourages travel and provides limited public health benefits.”

United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines all quickly announced they were yanking the mask requirement for domestic and some international flights. So did American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways.

Sleepy passengers on a Delta flight between Atlanta and Barcelona, Spain, cheered, whistled, and applauded when a flight attendant announced the news mid-flight over the ocean.

“No one’s any happier than we are,” the attendant says in a video posted by Dillon Thomas, a CBS Denver reporter, who was on the flight. She added that people who wanted to keep on their masks were encouraged to do so.

“But we’re ready to give ‘em up,” she added. “So, thank you and happy unmasking day!”

Major airports dropped their requirements but sided with the CDC in recommending that people be voluntarily masked. They included Los Angeles International Airport, the world’s fifth busiest by passenger volume, and Salt Lake City International Airport, which announced it would hand out masks to anyone requesting them.

New York City’s public transit system planned to keep its mask requirement in place. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said it would make masks optional for riders on its buses and trains.

As of Monday evening, the website of ride sharing company Lyft still said masks were required. In an email to customers Tuesday morning, Uber said masks were recommended but no longer required.

The CDC had recently extended the mask mandate, which was set to expire Monday, until May 3 to allow more time to study the BA.2 omicron subvariant of the coronavirus now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the U.S. But the court ruling puts that decision on hold.

Since the pandemic began two years ago, many state or local governments had issued various orders requiring masks to be worn inside schools, restaurants, stores or elsewhere. The rules were largely rolled back as the deadliest, most infectious months of the pandemic eased.

But the national rule for travellers remained and was arguably the most widespread, visible and irksome measure of its kind.

The wearing of masks aboard airplanes sparked online flame throwing between those who felt they were crucial to protecting people and those who saw it as an unnecessary inconvenience or even government overkill.

Some flight attendants found themselves cursed and even attacked by passengers who refused to comply.

The lawsuit was filed in July 2021 by two plaintiffs and the Health Freedom Defense Fund, described in the judge’s order as a non-profit group that “opposes laws and regulations that force individuals to submit to the administration of medical products, procedures and devices against their will.”

Republicans in Congress waged a running battle to kill the mandate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was not directly involved in the case but has battled against many government coronavirus requirements, praised the ruling.

“Both airline employees and passengers deserve to have this misery end,” DeSantis tweeted.