The last two years have been a hectic time for airlines. In order to safely cart millions of passengers daily as COVID spread, carriers have had to adapt in a number of ways. As a result, several restrictions were placed on travelers during this time, from not allowing you to fly without a mask to preventing you from ordering alcohol during your flight. Slowly but surely, airlines have been rolling back some of their COVID-based rules as case numbers rapidly decline. Now, United Airlines has just announced that it will be pulling back one of its biggest safety precautions later this month. Read on to find out what the airline will no longer be enforcing in the coming weeks.
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United Airlines will modify its vaccine mandate by allowing some of its unvaccinated employees to return to work soon, Insider recently reported. According to the news outlet, the airline will bring back more than 2,000 workers who did not get the vaccine in accordance with its mandate but received exemptions from the company, starting March 28. In Aug. 2021, United announced that its more than 67,000 employees would have until Sept. 27 of that year to get vaccinated against COVID or be fired.
According to Insider, more than 99 percent of the carrier’s workers ended up getting vaccinated by the deadline, but around 200 employees remained unvaccinated and were terminated. An additional 2,200 unvaccinated workers requested religious or medical exemptions, and those who were approved were allowed to keep their jobs with United, but had to work in a non-customer-facing position or take unpaid leave. On March 28, unvaccinated employees will be able to return to their former roles even if they work directly with customers, per The Wall Street Journal.
The substantial decrease in COVID numbers over the last…
