United Airlines demands that employees be vaccinated against the corona virus

United Airlines said Friday that all American employees must be vaccinated against the corona virus from this fall. It was the first major airline to institute such a mandate and the last in a small but growing number of companies to do so.

Also on Friday, Amazon, the country’s second-largest private employer, and JPMorgan Chase revived mask mandates for vaccinated workers.

We hope this will only be necessary for a few weeks, Amazon, which had allowed vaccinated workers to go without face coverings, wrote to its warehouse workers on Friday. Everyone can do their part to accelerate our return to normal by getting vaccinated.

JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, said unvaccinated workers should be tested at least twice a week and should not attend indoor employee events with 25 or more people. The company’s operating committee also said in a memo that the company will continue with our aforementioned return to the office schedule, even as many companies, including financial firms BlackRock and Wells Fargo, have postponed their mandatory return plans.

Amazon had already told its company employees that they would not be recalled from the office until January, pushing back a deadline set for early September. But it has not indicated any changes to its vaccination policy, which encourages but does not require immunization.

Hours after United’s announcement, Frontier Airlines, a much smaller airline, said it would also require vaccines for all employees. Border mandate begins on October 1.

Uniteds employees must upload proof of vaccination within five weeks of full approval of the vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration (not the Federal Drug Administration as previously reported here) or by October 25, whichever comes first. Those who provide proof before September 20 will receive a full day’s wages, with the exception of pilots and flight attendants who have already received a union-negotiated bonus to get vaccinated. So far, about 90 percent of Uniteds pilots and 80 percent of flight attendants have been vaccinated, the airline said.

We have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you are at work, and the facts are crystal clear: Everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated, Scott Kirby, the airline’s president, and Brett Hart, the president, they said in a memo to their staff.

Employees who do not adhere to the new policy will be fired. And while United allows exceptions for religious or medical reasons, it needs documentation.

Mr Kirby first raised the idea of ​​a mandate at an internal forum in January, saying United would be one of the first wave of companies to require vaccination.

Delta Air Lines requires new employees to be vaccinated, but existing employees are exempt. American Airlines does not set any mandates for employees or customers, its CEO, Doug Parker, said in an interview with New York Times columnist Kara Swisher.

Airlines have generally rejected the idea of ​​customer mandates. Mr Parker said in the interview that this would cause huge delays. Deltas CEO, Ed Bastian, said this week on CNBC that it would be very difficult to require customers to receive a vaccine that was not yet fully federally approved.

Lananh Nguyen and karen way reporting contributed.