All major airlines mandate vaccines, union warns of holiday staffing shortage

As all major airlines in the country implement vaccine mandates for their employees, the union representing American Airlines has warned that staffing shortages set in as the holiday season begins if the employees lose their jobs. Dennis Tajer, the spokesperson for Allied Pilots Association said, "What we're looking for is to ensure that there's a pilot in the cockpit. If you suddenly one day have 4,000-plus pilots that are not able to fly, that's a big deal. That's worse than this past summer." 

However, the largest pilot association and all major airlines- United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines- have confirmed that they are going forward with the vaccine mandates as per President Biden's executive orders. Under the President's vaccine mandate, airlines are considered government contractors. On Thursday, President Biden thanked United Airlines for being the first airline to implement the covid 19 vaccine mandate. United said that hundreds of employees changed their decisions to get the vaccine in the past week as they faced the risk of losing their jobs. According to the company, 28, 593 employees refused to get the vaccine as of September and the number has now fallen to 232 as of October 7th. 

Source: CBS News