United Airlines to Require All U.S. Employees to Get Covid-19 Vaccines

In a letter to employees Friday, Chief Executive Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart said they expected that some would disagree with the decision but said the move was necessary to keep workers safe.

“The facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated,” the executives wrote. “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.”

Mr. Kirby has been vocal about wanting his entire workforce to be vaccinated but had said earlier this year that such a requirement would be hard to implement if other companies weren’t also requiring vaccines. United has since June required that only newly hired employees be vaccinated, a policy that Delta Air Lines Inc. also implemented.

Business leaders in other industries broadly agree that getting more workers vaccinated is key to keeping the U.S. economy on track but have taken different approaches. Walmart Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have imposed vaccine mandates mostly on white-collar workers returning to offices. Meatpacker Tyson Foods Inc. this week said all workers must get the vaccine by Nov. 1.

There are early signs that the rapid spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant has started to weigh on travel bookings. Budget carrier Frontier Airlines said Wednesday that it believed concerns about the variant had dented bookings recently. And several large companies have said they will delay bringing workers back to offices, something airlines have been waiting for as a trigger for a new wave of business travel.

The three Covid-19 vaccines available in the U.S. are only approved for emergency use to protect against severe disease and hospitalization from Covid-19. Some corporate executives have worried about mandating vaccines without full approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian in a recent CNBC interview said the lack of full approval makes it more difficult to mandate vaccination. Delta has said over 70% of its employees are vaccinated.

The timing of United’s mandate is linked to the FDA’s approval, which airline executives said they expect could come early next month. Even so, the airline said employees will need to show proof of vaccination this fall or leave the company. The requirement will go into effect five weeks after the FDA fully approves a Covid-19 vaccine, or five weeks after Sept. 20—whichever comes first. Under the mandate, all 67,000 U.S. employees, with some exceptions for those with medical or religious reasons, will have to be vaccinated. Employees who upload photos of their vaccination cards before Sept. 20 will get an extra day of pay.

Under a previous agreement that United and its pilots struck earlier this year, pilots didn’t have to be vaccinated but were eligible for up to 13 hours of additional pay if they showed proof of vaccination. Under another earlier agreement, the airline offered flight attendants up to three additional days off in 2022 if they demonstrated proof of vaccination.

Those efforts largely paid off: Around 90% of United’s pilots and close to 80% of its flight attendants have been vaccinated, a United executive said.

The union that represents United’s pilots told members that the policy warrants further negotiations but that while a small number of pilots don’t agree with this new company policy, the union believes the policy is legal.

Write to Alison Sider at [email protected]