American Airlines and Alaska Airlines will end pandemic paid leave for unvaccinated employees who become ill with COVID-19.
American Airlines, the largest airline in the United States, said Friday that the company would not provide special permits as of next month to unvaccinated employees who have to quarantine because of COVID-19.
Unvaccinated workers will have to use time off due to illness or sick leave if they lose their jobs due to illness, the company said.
“Given that there is an FDA-approved vaccine, only pandemic leave will be offered to fully vaccinated team members and they provide us with their vaccination card,” the carrier said in a note to staff seen by Reuters.
Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines, said last month that the company would not require vaccinating passengers or employees.
American Airlines said Friday that the company would not provide special permits as of next month to unvaccinated employees who have to be quarantined.
Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines, told The New York Times last month that the company would not require vaccinating either passengers or employees.
Parker said verifying the vaccination status of passengers would be “incredibly heavy” for domestic flights and would cause flight delays.
He added that American Airlines offers an extra day off and a $ 50 gift card as an incentive for workers to get vaccinated.
“We certainly encourage it wherever we can, we encourage it for our customers and employees, but we’re not setting mandates,” Parker said.
Alaska Airlines said Friday that it had stopped paying special leave for unvaccinated employees due to infection or exposure to COVID-19.
The airline has mandated vaccination for all new hires and will pay $ 200 to employees who provide vaccination evidence.
“Throughout the pandemic, the safety of our employees and guests has always been first, and we are committed to protecting our co-workers, guests and loved ones from the impacts of the COVID-19 virus,” the company said in a communiqué.
“We believe that vaccinating as many people as possible is the best way to protect against COVID-19 and we will continue to strongly encourage our employees to get vaccinated.”
Alaska Airlines said 75% of Alaska Airlines employees and its sister company Horizon Air Industries have shared with the company that they are vaccinated.
“This is good progress, but we have more work to do. Therefore, we are implementing new measures designed to increase vaccination rates and improve our multilayered security approach,” the company said.
Alaska Airlines, which also does not require vaccination of its current employees, added that it would also implement a new testing protocol for unvaccinated employees while continuing to apply the use of masks and social distancing.
It was not immediately clear what the test protocols would entail.
JetBlue Airlines, the country’s sixth-largest airline, also offered up to one additional 14-day illness time for any crew member diagnosed with COVID-19.
“We encourage crew members to monitor their health on a daily basis and have a very clear policy that states that they should not come to work if they are ill,” the company’s website says.
It was not immediately clear how long JetBlue plans to continue its pandemic discharge program, but it has noted on its website that “most crew members have received the vaccine.”
A map shows the total number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the United States since the onset of the pandemic
A graph shows the number of coronavirus deaths per day since the beginning of the pandemic
A graph shows the number of coronavirus deaths per day in August and September
A map shows the percentage of the population in each state that has received the COVID-19 vaccine
The moves by American Airlines and Alaska Airlines on Friday come after United Airlines last month became the first U.S. airline to require vaccines for all domestic employees.
Frontier and Hawaiian Airlines have teamed up from United to demand employee vaccination.
Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines announced last month that unvaccinated employees will be charged an additional monthly fee of $ 200 for their health plans beginning in November.
Delta has also required all non-fully vaccinated U.S. employees to take a COVID test each week beginning Sept. 12.
“Over the past few weeks, the fight has changed with the rise of variant B.1.617.2, a very aggressive form of the virus,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a note to employees.
“Our head of health, Dr. Henry Ting, describes the variant as a ‘heat-seeking missile’ that transmits primarily through the unvaccinated community.”
Ted Christie, CEO of Spirit Airlines, told CNBC in July that the company has no plans to require its employees to receive the shot, but has urged employees to get vaccinated because of growing concerns about the Delta variant. of the coronavirus.
“The growing number of cases regarding the delta variant is obviously a concern for everyone,” Christie told Squawk Box. “The answer to that, we believe, is to get your vaccine, make sure you go out and get vaccinated.”