United Airlines was first out of the gate and strongest with a vaccine requirement for employees. They weren’t just requiring it for new employees (Delta) or incentivizing employees to get it (American). They aren’t just forcing the unvaxxed to take classes explaining that vaccines don’t connect you to the internet or make you the legal property of a pharmaceutical company (Alaska). It’s get vaxxed or get fired.
Here’s Scott Kirby speaking to United Airlines employees:
There are legal limits to what United can do. While the federal government has supported employer vaccine mandates (even before the first full authorization to a Covid-19 vaccine was granted to Pfizer-BioNTech) there are generally carve outs needed for those medically unable to get vaccinated and for those with religious objections. United has had the support of its flight attendants union not to even assist flight attendants in seeking religious exemptions.
While United legal concluded they had to offer these vaccine exemptions, they’ve decided that anyone obtaining one cannot work in some cases “he pandemic meaningfully recedes” and in other cases (such as non-customer facing roles) when new health procedures are in place for weekly Covid testing and masking.
United Airlines employees who receive religious exemptions from the company for COVID-19 vaccinations will be placed on temporary, unpaid personal leave from Oct. 2, the U.S. airline said in a Wednesday memo to staff.
…“Given the dire statistics listed above, we can no longer allow unvaccinated people back into the workplace until we better understand how they might interact with our customers and their vaccinated coworkers,” the airline said the memo.
…United said the restriction and requirements are similar for employees seeking medical exemptions but employees winning exemptions will be placed on temporary medical leave.
In some ways United is taking a truly hard line – and is reasonably likely to attract lawsuits – but at the same time is splitting the baby and not doing much for public health because there’s no requirement that customers must be vaccinated.
- Passengers come into more contact with other passengers than employees (in gate areas, check-in lines, security and in middle seats)
- Cabin crew and airport agents come into more contact with passengers than other employees as well.
I would fly an airline where everyone had to be vaccinated (and those with legally-necessitated exemptions had to properly wear high quality masks). Knowing that employees are vaccinated doesn’t meaningfully change my exposure profile.
And it’s not just Covid-19 I’m concerned with, so airlines need to look at their sick policies so that employees aren’t pressured to work when they’re infectious with things not called Covid-19 as well.
To be sure the airline has a legitimate interest in reducing the chance that crew infect each other, because large numbers of sick employees will compromise the business. It’s prudent to push for a vaccinated workforce during a pandemic. But it’s not a major contributor to passenger protection.
United is a Fascist airline.
What do you expect when the CEO suffers from little “man” syndrome.
@Kogger
I have seen Scott in person and can attest he is quite tall.
I hate to say this but this likely has very little to do with COVID-19 vaccines and everything to do with conserving cash. By making employees who are unvaccinated take unpaid leave, the airline will have fewer employees on payroll and since business travel isn’t picking up, this allows the airline to reduce costs when revenue has also decreased. Then the policies will be in place likely in time for the holidays when they will need all of their employees again. It is sad but that is likely the primary driver of this policy. They know that the remaining holdouts won’t get vaccinated immediately or likely ever.
We need to get much more serious about it. The unvaccinated are not only crowding the hospitals and ICUs, they are in at least some hospitals preventing the most effective emergency care for people who need it for other reasons. There is a point at which someone’s right to volunteer for a slow, miserable, pointless death needs to be balanced against other people’s need for the best hospital treatment and outcomes. There is no major religion whose tenets forbid vaccination, so people claiming such an exemption have no standing.
United is right to be aggressive. They want their staff to be healthy and and at work, rather than sick or dead. I would love to see the requirement extended to passengers.
I believe there is no major religion that
Get a vaccine that is only 40% effective against a virus that is 99.9998% INeffective at killing you. #scamdemic
The longer staff spend with an infectious person the more likely they are to become infected, they are more likely to spent more time closely with individual employees than individual customers. Good on em!
@Jerome – define your terms. there are studies showing declining effectiveness against *symptoms* of the pfizer vaccine down into the 40s against the delta variant/after 6 months, it is still > 90% effective against severe disease, and the moderna vaccine and astrazeneca vaccine show higher effectiveness against symptoms at a similar period.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 has *already* killed a quarter percent of the U.S. population so you can’t really say the virus kills only 0.0002%.
@Steven – in an office environment, sure, or in the cockpit. But since the virus spreads largely via aerosols the ‘six foot social distancing’ model is simply wrong and outdated, a gate agent is exposed to all the passengers at the gate, perhaps the next gate…
This is over the top and will almost certainly face a legitimate legal challenge.
If someone can legitimately show that they have not received vaccines for religious reasons and don’t want one now, then there is absolutely no reason for covid to become the reason to pull those exemptions away.
And United still can’t understand that those who are vaccinated are at much lower risk of getting sick while vaccines do NOT eliminate the risk of carrying or transmitting the virus.
Fortunately, Southwest’s network overlaps much of United’s. I’ll do all possible to fly Southwest.
Lol @ DaveS.
You really buy into the corporate press story. What’s it feel like to be so poorly uninformed?
Cabin crew come into more contact with passengers…..lol
Its been a while since I’ve ejected coffee in a projectile fashion from my nostrils!
Lil @george
You really buy into the anti-vax lies. What’s it feel like to be so poorly informed and next on the list to die from a disease which can be arrested by a proven vaccine?
I hope @Jerome gets Covid, sorry, not sorry
From a long time ER doc, this is great, great, great news!
The airline management should be held personally liable for providing full retirement level compensation too all employees who object to having foreign unnatural substances put their in their bodies. Conservatives would be smart to seize personal property of management of any big business that does not provide full retirement level compensation to employees who don’t wish to have a vaccine put in their bodies. Conservative counties, conservative sheriffs, and conservative states should be seizing personal property of airline management who make this decision. Airlines themselves don’t make this decision. Shareholders who own the airlines don’t make these decisions. Upper management does. The union leaders and management should also be held personally responsible for providing full retirement level compensation to employees they have not properly represented.
Unless you are a devout Christian Scientist there is no “religious objection” to the vaccine. No other major religion objects to vaccines. Anyone else who tries to claim one is violating the Third Commandment by taking the lord’s name in vain.
This is why I was so happy in the EU the past weeks for work. Present a vaccination card or go sleep in the park and eat while standing at the local sausage kiosk. You are welcome nowhere else. How it should be. The anti-vaxxers/antimaskers/Hoax people have caused the deaths of millions. They should be forced to spend the rest of their lives (those who survive) by only being allowed to travel to Pensacola or Myrtle Beach.
the “vaccines” don’t work. go get your 4th booster Gar-bear
@Stuart
You do realize that the Black and Hispanic populations are percentage wise the most unvaccinated. Why do you hate them and want them to sleep in the park? I mean, I know you don’t want them in the First Class cabin with you but sleep in the park and only eat sausage?? What if they’re Muslim? They won’t be able to eat the sausage.
@Afrone Mafow – I get a flu shot every year, no big deal, and the mRNA vaccines are more effective than a flu shot, and Covid-19 more dangerous than flu.
@Andrew – have you looked into the canon of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster?
I’m waiting for OSHA to mandate vaccines for people coming into regular contact with other people at work. I suspect this would be considered if it wouldn’t take 4 years to get through all the temporary restraining orders. They have permissible exposure levels for just about everything else.
I fly UA and while I hate masks, I dutifully wore mine last month from DTW-EWR-ATH and back. I would’ve felt better knowing the staff were all vaccinated. As a customer, I’d choose the airline toughest on Covid. I’m sick and tired of politics slowing things down. I say we go further and insist that all passengers be vaccinated. A few weeks ago my friend and I took our own Covid tests while in Athens. It was very easy, and we both were negative. We needed it to enter our own country. I thought I was safe in my little cubicle because I assumed everyone had taken a negative Covid test, but I think it was just for Americans. It would be so much easier for people to get vaccinated!
Why do people fly if they are scared of Covid?
Absent incredibly rare medical conditions (allergy to all available vaccines?), there is no reason to not get vaccinated.
Ultimately, the only path to travel sector recovery is blanket vaccine mandates.
Here in BC, you’ll need proof of vaccination to enter non-essential businesses, including patios. There are no exemptions whatsoever.
United sees how awful their revenue gonna be this next q4 and q1 and need excuses to let people go since actually letting people go would look bad since daddy US government bailed them out.
@Avery
Yes but with the city’s blessing you can also openly and freely shoot heroin in public on E. Hastings too! So progressive!
Clearly he’s betting on asia opening up and everyone better have vaccinations! United make’s premium money flying in that market with all their new planes with premium seats.
Stuart,
you apparently didn’t venture too far into the streets because there are Europeans that are objecting to vaccine mandates and passports – just as in the US. The notion that Americans are the only ones that don’t want to get the vaccine or object to mandates is simply inaccurate.
Rozellevm,
First, vaccinations have almost always been optional for crew members; crew members might not be able to enter some countries if you don’t have the vaccines they require but alot of people don’t grasp that the covid-19 vaccine is the first vaccine that is being pushed as mandatory for adults – and that is why there is so much objection.
as for United and Asia, because of their large presence in China and Hong Kong, both of which are barely open to US travelers of any kind (no US airline is flying to HKG at all), Delta is carrying just about as many passengers to Asia as United – and China said it will likely be well into 2022 before they allow an increase in international flights.
And United’s fleet – both domestically and internationally – is the oldest among US carriers. They have the world’s largest fleet of 777-200/ERs which are the least fuel efficient widebody aircraft in the US carrier fleet. American and Delta have both retired large numbers of older international aircraft although American still has over 60 777s. So, the notion that United is going to quickly return to Asia and make money is unlikely given both the demand environment and also that all of their major international competitors have much more efficient fleets.
The statistic that continues to get lost in every discussion about covid is that one-third of covid deaths in the US are happening in long-term care facilities, mostly involving seniors, and the percentage of senior covid deaths in facilities has remained constant throughout the pandemic.
Covid always has disproportionately affected certain populations and yet despite efforts to push mitigation efforts on the whole population, the most vulnerable continue to die at similarly high rates as they did early in the pandemic.
@ Gary — The amount of energy expended by otherwise intelligent people in coming up with supposedly logical reasons to not get vaccinated is unbelievable. For 99% of the population, there is no reason NOT to get vaccinated. People are just stubborn and stupid.
Now united is spitting out the baby or some such because they insist on vaccines for their employees? While just a week back Gary was going on about how he doesn’t know if the pax next to him is vaccinated.
Sheesh Gary make up your mind. United can’t control its passengers but it can have its employees follow its policies. By your logic no one should wear a seat belt. After all you can’t control what a driver of another car is doing or going to do.
@Jackson Certainly you shouldn’t have to put foreign unnatural substances in your body. Of course you also don’t have to work for United Airlines, or any airline at all. It’s a free country, so those who don’t like the policy can go get a job somewhere else. The rest of us will keep flying with improved safety.
@Jackass Waterson is on his rant again. Such ignorance. Are you six? And by the way, use the word “to” in your stupid rant. It isn’t “too”.
@Tim Dunn: yes there are Europeans arguing against the vaccine with the same ignorance the Americans use but far fewer in percentage. Take a look at the overall fully vaccinated numbers by country.
If you don’t want to get a vaccine because it makes you feel uncomfortable, understand that you will make others feel uncomfortable around you. It may be your family, friends, employer, other countries, or places of business who don’t want anything to do with you, but it’s your choice to literally die on that hill.
I am sorry but I disagree with your assessment that one is more likely to be infected by a fellow passenger than crew. This is not based in any scientific basis. What is clear is that achieving a meaningful level of vaccination is what will finally bring this under control. It is a reasonable step to require employee vaccinations. It would be ideal to also require passengers to prove they are vaccinated, but as that would be a very challenging goal right now it is very very reasonable to start where one can, with employees. Better to make meaningful steps in the right direction rather than do nothing.
I agree with 747always
Gary knows perfectly well United can’t practically mandate vaccinated passengers. The fact that it is taking the lead in trying to get all employees vaccinated should be applauded. Somehow Gary has made this into a negative.
How about United taking a more constructive approach if it truly values its employees, perhaps offering an employee bonus to get the vaccine, perhaps a contribution to the 401k plan or a one time bonus of, say, $1000-$5000?
A lot of the religious objections are sure to disappear in this case.
But, if an employee has had and recovered from the virus there is no need for a vaccine since the latest scientific data show a better protection than a vaccine.
30+ comments of people fighting over vaccines, and then there’s JC with the second comment who nailed it.
This is about money. United just pulled guidance for Q3 and Q4 and predicts to be back to not being profitable.
These mandates forcing people onto unpaid leave helps with all that. Money is all that matters to the CEOs and shareholders
“I would fly an airline where everyone had to be vaccinated ” Agreed. I think airlines should start testing this theory on some of their busier routes. Offer a flight where you need to be fully vaccinated and compare it to other flights on the route which allow unvaccinated people. I’m pretty sure vaccinated people will opt for the vaccinated flight as long as it is not too inconvenient. If it is successful then they can expand it. I do think an airline that requires everyone to be fully vaxxed may be able to spin that as a selling point.
“But, if an employee has had and recovered from the virus there is no need for a vaccine since the latest scientific data show a better protection than a vaccine.” Actually the latest shows that the people most protected may be those who have prior covid infections AND have had the vaccine. The problem with the prior study about risk of reinfection of covid in people who have had it before is that the it is likely that those study results were really skewed. The people in the study were the ones who got tested and confirmed to have covid and they were likely tested because they were having symptoms of covid. Who is not included in the numbers is all those asymptomatic or minor symptom people who had covid but didn’t bother to get tested. So maybe only people who had a severe bout of covid in the past have this protection at this level and not just people who had mild covid infections. The third booster shot may make the vaccines more effective than prior infections. Still too early to suggest having had covid in the past means you don’t need a vaccination.
Honest question:
Why isn’t covid killing the billions of still unvaccinated people in third world countries where social distancing, proper mask wearing, and hygiene are non existent? I would think there would be bodies piling up in dense populated cities in Africa, Bangladesh, and Indonesia , etc. ?
305.
Multiple airlines provided updated investor guidance this morning.
And, yes, United changed its guidance from a third quarter adjusted pre-tax profit to a loss.
Delta also adjusted its guidance, cut capacity but is still expecting to be profitable on the same basis as UAL.
Southwest already guided that it probably would not be profitable in the 3rd quarter while American never guided for profitability – which explains in part why they have washed their hands of any responsibility for customer protections when American’s operation inevitably falls apart as it certainly will at least by Thanksgiving if not sooner.
As for vaccine resistance, one-third of the nurses at a major Cincinnati hospital said they would quit their jobs before being forced to be vaccinated.
Multiple Chicago and other big city unions are ready to fight against vaccine mandates. Public service will fail spectacularly as vaccine mandates continue. Airlines might not need all of their employees but lots of other sectors do – and it will cost incumbent politicians spectacularly a year from now as schools, police and fire services close or are delayed because of staffing shortages.
All of the airlines are operating in a similarly difficult environment. Federal aid is running out and it is doubtful that any further aid will be given to airlines given how spectacularly bad their operations – and treatment of customers has been – this summer.
The difference between United and American, Delta and Southwest, all of which are headquartered in the South – is that United is willing to throw its employees under the nosewheel by pushing them out on a leave of absence in order to achieve their financial goals.
In contrast, Delta’s policy of increasing insurance costs and requiring punitive measures such as masking for unvaccinated employees (outside of airports and airplanes) as well as regular testing best aligns not just the real cost of the pandemic (the risk of more costly healthcare for unvaccinated people) while recognizing that vaccines do not eliminate the ability of vaccinated people from carrying or transmitting the vaccine while masking, testing, and social distancing identify and isolate potential higher risk virus carriers.
And, more significantly, Delta managed to come up with a complete policy including for unvaccinated employees while United is telling its unvaccinated employees that they will be sidelined without pay and UAL will get back to them later.
I have said throughout the pandemic that government money has distorted the industry and when government cheese finally runs out, how well or how poorly airlines are run will be apparent. With AA’s passenger protection changes and now UA’s unvaccinated policies, it shows why those two will continue to underperform the rest of the industry which is what they have done for most of deregulation.
“I would think there would be bodies piling up in dense populated cities in Africa, Bangladesh, and Indonesia , etc. ?” Umm you realize children were dying in Indonesia due to covid right? That they had pretty strict lockdowns to get the situation under control?
@Vijay – they certainly were in India… and Peru… and in parts of Africa.. the heterogeneity of how the virus has been experienced is an important and insufficiently understood question but there’s also less tracking of such matters in some of these places and underreporting.
@ Gary I’m well versed in Pastafarianism.
Delta’s policy of charging a higher premium for unvaccinated doesn’t seem to make much sense unless it self insures the major portion of its medical plans and it is experiencing increased claims. But that also doesn’t make sense because Covid has actually helped control medical costs because doctors and patients delaying routine and elective procedures. Delta management can unilaterally charge some employees more because they are nonunion. Unionized airlines couldn’t do that because it would violate the collective bargaining agreements. It will be interesting to see the effect, if any, this decision has on the next organizing campaign at Delta. Delta and American should just mandate vaccines and accommodate any religious and medical objections. I assume United will allow unvaccinated employees to use any accrued vacation and sick time rather than forcing them to take unpaid leave.
Steve is an ass and a terrible human being. He hopes Jerome gets covid. Maybe Jerome will hang out long enough to hear about your death from a vaccine related heart issue or maybe a brain aneurism in about 7 or 8 months. Too bad, so sad.
Delta and most large companies are self-insured although they have insurance companies manage the program for them. When you get a large enough population of people, you know the risks and can calculate the cost.
Delta just provided information that their rate of vaccination has gone up from 74% to 78% across the company since they announced the insurance premium hikes that go into effect in almost 2 months. Delta’s strategy is getting people to get vaccinated who otherwise were not because Delta, like many companies, said their rates of vaccination were not increasing prior to their strategy changes.
Given that United’s flight attendant union has said they would not challenge the company if any unvaccinated flight attendants are sent home w/o pay, please tell me what advantage a union is providing.
Delta’s vaccination rate is well above the national average, above the goals for the country by the CDC, and very likely as high as if not higher than other airlines. in August, American said that they had 60% of their employees vaccinated. Time has certainly passed but I would strongly bet that AA and WN have lower percentages of vaccinated employees than Delta or United.
Bill-Got sick. Stayed home. Treated myself and never saw a dr. About 6 weeks later I went for a test to check my titer which showed a high positive number. I have about a 1% chance of getting it again as my t-cells will kick in when and if my antibodies start to tank. I don’t need the vaccine which obviously has a dubious record of successfully eliminating Covid. With the shot antibodies quickly diminish and boosters are needed. T-cells are not activated. The vaccinated become carriers as they may not even be aware that they are infectious. Go ahead and keep putting those spike proteins in until your body gives up and can’t take any more. Many of us don’t need to take a chance on side effects and death caused by that.