LAX UA 1K

I think UA means the second shot should be received by the deadline, which gives people two weeks of flexibility from today for scheduling.

wbatl1

Interesting to see Delta, which announced no formal mandate, is going to charge unvaccinated employees $2400 / year in surcharge for health benefits. That's in addition to additional changes, like removing pay protection for positive COVID tests. The UA vaccine mandate seems a lot easier to execute and cleaner to explain than the multiple Delta policies, though both working toward the same goal. I guess one reason Delta might be taking this approach is concern about the local Georgia politics re: vaccine mandate itself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/b...mid=tw-nytimes

IAH-OIL-TRASH

The airlines also worry about medical costs. A lot of their employees are in close proximity to customers and each other. Airline exposure to increase medical costs per employee are probably higher than a lot of other companies. I recently moved to a condo at Honolulu Harbor and am amazed how 100s of workers (at the loading/unloading container facility across the harbor) are naturally separated. Dozens of truck drivers, crane operators, traffic control, etc. Not so at the airlines.

Beyond the harbor, I can see two UA tails at the Diamond Head concourse this morning. Kinda cool...

sincx

And having 1-3 employees die a week tends to be both demoralizing and bad for business operations.

uastarflyer

Great to see the CEO out front and public on this and hope others follow his lead.

That only applies to health and safety measures, not soft product “enhancements”

azepine00

would you be as supportive of smth like:
"we are losing 1-3 employees per week due to diabetes and cardiovascular etc diseases linked to obesity therefore we require everyone to complete screening and, if prescribed, treatment cycle"

refusing to vaccinate may be foolish and politicizing that issue was extremely unfortunate (and irresponsible and criminal imo) but it doesnt mean employers (or state) should be forcing medical procedures for individuals under the flag of greater good... i'd much rather see education/incentive/penalty approach ala delta..

TomMM

And some employers have wellness programs in place that require screening and meeting certain metrics to obtain certain funds related to health/wellness.

canadiancow

My diabetes doesn't put anyone else at risk.

An unvaccinated employee puts everyone else, including other vaccinated employees, at higher risk.

emcampbe

If they are not going to mandate (and I think, at minimum, the companies that have public facing employees should, but that’s for another thread…), at least they are doing this. The penalties should be big enough that it doesn’t make sense (I presume those with legit medical exceptions would not be subject to this). There was actually another NYT article a week or two ago, about who should pay for weekly or twice weekly testing for employees that refuse to get vaccinated at the various companies that have mandates that provide an out. IMO, I don’t see why a company should cover those expenses (again, except where there are legit medical reasons) - if an employee actively chooses not to get the vaccine, the cost of testing should be borne by those responsible, not spread out to everyone.

Im also pretty confident that health insurers in general will (and should) charge a surcharge for those who refuse the vaccine (again, aside from legit medical exceptions). We already see this in other areas, where smokeers pay a surcharge, and/or others who give a discount on premiums to those who get an annual physical every year.

It’s a very American concept to have people pay their way out of [insert item here]. With public health involved, I’m not sure why folks should be able to pay their way out of this. Given the amount of people that can be affected by these folks who won’t do the right thing (immunocompromised, for example, where vaccines don’t work so well, those who for medical reasons can’t get it, kids, etc.), it is just better to have mandates…it’s your choice to get it, but if you don’t, you might not be able to work, sit at a restaurant, etc.

as for diabetes and cardiovascular, etc., there are a lot of companies that at least have programs meant to help/encourage folks…it’s not a mandate to get treatment, but incentives to complete physical activity, diabetes consultations/programs, etc. While there certainly is some health consequences beyond the problems they can have themselves for not taking advantage (ie, additional medical costs, taking up medical resources that could be better used elsewhere, etc.), it’s not a direct threat to others the way COVID is. In other words, an individual not attempting to treat those issues will have a lot of consequences to themselves, but at least not to the general public (diabetes, after all, is bad, but certainly not contagious).

azepine00

us vs them approach is a simplistic way out (hey all our suffering is due to neighbors who are not vaccinating - go get them!) but i doubt it reflects reality of dealing with covid...

for many months we've been telling ppl that vaccination would protect them; now apparently it is vaccinating self and forcing everyone around to vaccinate..

HGHUA

The deadline is the drop-dead date for full vaccination with the MRNA vaccines. Meaning you needed to get the second shot two week earlier. If you get it on the last day they are allowing the 1 shot J&J on Sept 27 to meet the reqs too though.

lancelot21

Well put.

I feel safer knowing flight attendants are vaccinated, because I am safer.

Whyme

A fully vaccinated flight attendant did die from Covid yesterday. I am told, but have no verification, that he is not the first at the airline.

A few thousand employees from all departments have joined together to fight for their legal right to medical and/or religious exemptions and have retained legal counsel. United continues to play silly games like requiring employees to submit a written statement from some random acquaintance (not even from a religious leader, which is also not required under law) to attest to one's religious beliefs. They have, as far as anyone knows, neither accepted nor denied anyone's medical or religious claims even after having them under review for over a month, but continue to send daily threats of termination to those who have requested their legally entitled exemption.

lincolnjkc

Seatbelts are proven to make not only you safer but those around you in a collision safer. Wearing a seatbelt doesn't guarantee that you'll be injury-free or even not dead after a traffic accident but it does significantly improve the odds of both you surviving with lower injuries but also not ruining someone else's day by becoming a missile when your rocket launcher -- erm, car -- comes to a sudden stop. (Same thing with seatbelts on airplanes, for that matter) -- the vaccine is no different.

There is a requirement to consider exceptions for medical and religious reasons and the company is, so far as anyone can tell, processing those requests in line with internal policy. No one is "entitled" to an exemption -- there are quite a number of grounds on which the company could determine that an exemption is not warranted. Of course if that happens it will be up to arbitration with the unions and ultimately the courts to decide who is right.

Repooc17

If you are worried, FAs should be not your target group, considering most FAs don't interact with passengers for more than 30 seconds.

Me? I have been on almost 90 flights this year alone, and I can care less who's vaccinated and who's not. The probability of my exposure rate is probably higher than most. That said, if I get infected, so be it. Life goes on.