United Airlines facing loss of millions due to unvaccinated pilots

The coronavirus pandemic started off with a heavy crisis for people across the globe. The rollout of the vaccines helped to bring down the infections to a great level and helped the economies to get back to pre-pandemic levels. While majority of the people have got their double shots, but there is still a community that remains unvaccinated due to a number of reasons. The United Airlines has said that its unvaccinated pilots are costing them about one and a half million dollars every two weeks.

Reports have said that the airline was forced to put the pilots to put on a paid leave as the other vaccinated colleagues had refused to risk working with the unvaccinated people. Things become more uncertain when the United has asked the federal judge in Texas not to extend the temporary ban on the vaccine mandate, that was announced in the month of August, 2021. The interim order was declined an extension by Fort Worth judge that had banned the airline from allowing the unvaccinated workers to be on unpaid leave. That was allowed on the basis of a religious or a medical exemption.

The ban was brought to effect in the month of September but reports said that the unvaccinated pilots had cost the airline nearly $1.4 million every two weeks. Moreover, the airline company is very unlikely to recover the lost funds. In September 2021, the company had announced that 99 percent of its employees were vaccinated as per the mandate.

On the other hand nearly 600 workers who were unvaccinated were expected to be fired. Things are taking a different turn as the travel demand is steadily getting back to normal. More countries have reopened their borders for leisure and unessential travel and more people are venturing out and do things that they could not do due to the travel restrictions faced across the globe. People are more willing to spend on travel and situations like this could be tricky for the airlines.

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