Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways announced today that they’ve become the first airline in the world to have vaccinated their entire front-line workforce including all pilots and cabin crew.

“We proactively made the vaccine available to all our employees to not only help combat the effects of Covid 19 but to make travellers feel confident and reassured the next time they fly with us,” he said.

“We are the only airline in the world to make Covid-19 testing mandatory for every passenger and crew member before every flight and now, we’re the first airline in the world with 100 percent vaccinated crew on board,” he added.

Etihad did this without making vaccination mandatory. They’ve given early access, and told employees that unvaccinated employees aren’t eligible for sick pay if they contract the virus. In addition to customer-facing employees 75% of other members of their workforce have been offered the vaccine.

It should be caveated, though, that the claim of vaccination means that employees have generally taken at least one of two doses of Sinopharm’s inactivated virus vaccine so far. The two-dose regiment has reported to have 79% efficacy.

Both Singapore Airlines and Emirates are in the process of vaccinating their full workforces. And are likely to be next to complete the task.

United Airlines says it wants vaccination to be mandatory for its employees, but this won’t happen for some time as most employees aren’t yet considered eligible. Delta is setting up its own vaccination clinics, the first ones are in Atlanta for those eligible under Georgia rules. American says they encourage vaccination, don’t plan to require it, but could be forced to for competitive reasons.