Several companies around the world already require their flight personnel to have a vaccination. Germany’s largest airline has been insisting on this for weeks.
Under pressure from government requirements, other US airlines are obliging their employees to have corona vaccinations.
American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Jet Blue ordered this at the weekend, as reported by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, citing circulars to employees.
Lufthansa also wants to have its flight crew fully vaccinated against Corona, but cannot rely on a mandatory vaccination like the Swiss subsidiary Swiss. According to Lufthansa, stable, global flight operations will otherwise not be feasible in the future. Individual countries already required the vaccination for pilots, flight attendants and flight attendants, others would follow.
US President Joe Biden decreed that from December 8th, only companies with vaccinated employees would receive government contracts. Several airlines assume that they fall under this rule.
United Airlines had previously prescribed corona vaccinations for all employees. More than 96 percent fulfilled the requirement, almost 600 employees refused and should be dismissed. Around half of them then gave in, as the Wall Street Journal reported, citing United.
Vaccination certificate also otherwise usual
Lufthansa board member Detlef Kayser affirmed in the “Bild am Sonntag”, “As a global airline, we advocate mandatory vaccination for our crews and also need a way to record vaccination data.” At the end of August, Lufthansa announced that it was working on appropriate agreements with the staff representatives. A spokesman said on request: “We are in an exchange with the co-determination bodies to find a solution.”
Evidence of other vaccinations, for example against yellow fever, has been common for Lufthansa crews on long-haul missions for decades in order to meet the entry requirements of many countries, it said. For deployment planning, it must at least be possible to request and record the Covid vaccination data from crews.
The Swiss Lufthansa subsidiary introduced mandatory vaccination for crews in August and wants to terminate cabin crew who cannot be vaccinated against the corona virus. Everyone must be fully vaccinated by December 1st.
The state-owned New Zealand airline Air New Zealand will only allow fully vaccinated passengers on international flights from February. “The compulsory vaccination on our international flights gives both customers and employees the certainty that everyone on board meets the same health requirements,” said CEO Greg Foran. The vaccination against Covid-19 is “the new reality for international travel”.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
