United Airlines Mandates Coronavirus Vaccine For U.S. Employees

NEWARK, NJ — Over the past 16 months, dozens of condolence letters have been sent to the family members of United Airlines employees who died from the coronavirus. And according to top executives, the airline is determined to do everything it can to prevent another family from getting a letter … including mandating COVID-19 vaccines for its workers.

On Friday, United announced that starting this fall, every U.S.-based employee, including those at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, will be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and upload their vaccination record to the company’s database.

The deadline is five weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced it has fully approved a COVID-19 vaccine, or five weeks after Sept. 20, “whichever comes first.”

CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart sent an explanation about the vaccine mandate to employees, which can be seen in full below.

LETTER FROM UNITED TO EMPLOYEES

Throughout the pandemic, we have been direct and candid with you about the steps we’ve taken to keep you and our customers safe from COVID-19. In the earliest days of the pandemic, the outcome of those decisions was uncertain because we had so little data about how the disease was spread and how people were affected. Over the last nine months though, we have learned a lot about this disease, including how vaccines are – by far – the most effective way to protect people from COVID-19. In fact, we know now that an unvaccinated person is about 50 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than a vaccinated person and nearly 300 times more likely to die.

Those stats are incredibly compelling and led us to an important decision about your safety: This fall, every U.S.-based United employee will be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and upload their vaccination record to Flying Together.

Here’s how it will work: All U.S.-based United employees will be required to upload a vaccine card showing you have received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine (or one dose of the J&J vaccine) five weeks after the FDA has announced it has fully approved a COVID-19 vaccine or five weeks after September 20, whichever comes first. So, the latest potential deadline for meeting this requirement is October 25. However, according to media reports, the FDA is likely to announce its full approval for the vaccine early next month, so the earlier timeline is more likely.

For those employees who are already vaccinated - and for those employees who get vaccinated and upload their records to Flying Together before September 20 - we’ll offer an additional day of pay.

United pilots and flight attendants who have already received union-negotiated compensation for uploading their vaccine records are not eligible. Officers at United, 100% of whom have uploaded their vaccination cards, are also ineligible for this benefit.

Since day one of the pandemic, you’ve been on the frontline - at our airports and on board our aircraft - taking care of our customers and one another. And to keep you safe, we’ve taken industry-leading action, including becoming the first airline to mandate masks for employees, the first to introduce customer COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, and the first (and still only) to run our HEPA filtration systems during the entire boarding and deplaning process.

And after the FDA issued “emergency-use authorizations” for the vaccines – where every piece of data collected to date confirms these vaccines are safe and highly effective – we proactively promoted the benefits of vaccination to our employees, helped thousands of you get vaccinated at our airport clinics and required vaccinations for new employees and those of you flying positive space for international travel.

At the start of the year, we said it was the right thing to do for United Airlines, and for other companies, to require vaccines for employees. In the past few weeks, you’ve likely read about actions by federal, state and local governments, Fortune 100 companies, higher education institutions and health care groups to require vaccinations. And more than 50 medical groups now support these kinds of requirements including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association.

We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees. But, we have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you’re at work, and the facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated.

Over the last 16 months, Scott has sent dozens of condolences letters to the family members of United employees who have died from COVID-19. We’re determined to do everything we can to try to keep another United family from receiving that letter.

So here’s the bottom line: If you’re unvaccinated today, please check out the vaccine finder on Flying Together, schedule an appointment and upload your vaccination card. The vaccine is widely available, free and fully covered by your United health insurance plan. And if you’ve already been vaccinated but haven’t uploaded your information, please do it now on Flying Together to be eligible for an additional day of pay.

Our leadership teams will host a series of town halls in the coming weeks to continue the conversation, we’ve posted a set of FAQs on Flying Together and you can submit specific questions to Help Hub.

Thank you for all you continue to do to take care of our customers and one another. Together, we’ll do our part to defeat this virus and continue along our journey to becoming the best airline in the history of aviation.

Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com

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