American Airlines, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines have joined United Airlines in mandating that employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19, per the Wall Street Journal.
Why it matters: The Biden administration has been pressing businesses to require workers to be vaccinated against the virus as vaccination rates flatten across the U.S.
The airlines provide government services including cargo hauling and special flights, which they say makes them contractors to the government so they fall under President Biden’s mandatory vaccination directive, AP reports.
The big picture: American Airlines told staff on Friday that it would require all employees based in the U.S. and “certain international crew members” to be vaccinated, per a memo obtained by Reuters.
The American memo gave no timeline. But JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines said Friday they’d implement a vaccine mandate as early as Dec. 8, AP notes. That’s the deadline the White House has given for federal contractors to be inoculated, with limited exceptions.
Delta said it’s “still evaluating Biden’s order,” according to AP.
An apparently unhinged woman was duct-taped to an airplane seat last week after she allegedly attacked the flight crew and tried to open the door of the aircraft in midflight.
Video posted on social media showed the gray-haired woman with silver duct tape over her mouth, and her arms and body seemingly taped to the seat.
She could be heard screaming, “You! You! You!” as passengers exited American Airlines Flight 1774 past her — flight attendants calmly nodded their goodbyes, according to the footage posted by TikTok user @lol.ariee.
The two-hour July 6 flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Charlotte, NC, had been delayed for at least three hours before it finally departed at midnight, but about an hour into the trip, chaos broke out, @lol.ariee said in subsequent videos describing the hectic scene.
Flight attendants began turning on the lights at around 1:30 a.m., she said, “and we see all flight attendants running up and down the aisles, frantically kind of like whispering to each other.”
The plane’s crew began locking bathrooms, grabbing bags from overhead bins, and wouldn’t say what was happening, @lol.ariee said.
“It was just kind of like chaos and no one knows what’s going on,” she continued.
Finally the pilot spoke over the intercom, asking people to stay in their seats, and referencing “a bad situation in the plane right now,” according to the passenger.
“Then we’re gradually starting to hear more and more screaming, and we’re like, ‘Wait a minute,’” she noted.
Just as the plane was about to land, a flight attendant who sat near them explained a woman with an apparent mental issue, “had an outburst and like, had the urge to get off the plane. And she was saying, ‘I need to get off this plane,’ and she went up to the exits and started banging on the doors, saying, ‘You need to let me off this plane!’”
“I guess it took all five flight attendants to subdue her and like literally take her down so,” she said, of the incident, which was first reported by TMZ. “They pretty much took her down, put her in the seat and duct taped her.”
American Airlines confirmed the incident, telling The Post the woman assaulted and bit a flight attendant after she “attempted to open the forward boarding door” and was restrained “for the safety and security of other customers and our crew.”
Emergency personnel met the flight on the ground in Charlotte, and took the woman to a local hospital, said the airline, who placed her on American’s “internal” no fly list pending an investigations.
The FAA is investigating the Bahamas-bound American Airlines flight delayed on Monday by rowdy teens who refused wear masks — as the Boston-area group’s program provider claimed most of the kids did nothing wrong.
The recent high school grads from Winthrop, Massachusetts, made “smart mouth” comments to flight attendants when asked to mask-up, according to witnesses — but program organizer Breakaway Beach claims the airline falsely blamed the entire group for a single student’s refusal to mask-up.
“The group was treated in an improper and overly harsh manner, causing unnecessary stress and aggravation to the travelers and their parents from afar,” Winer said in a statement to CNN on Wednesday.
“The act of one individual is not the responsibility of others, and the students that were abiding by the rules should not have had to endure this type of treatment.”
In a statement, American Airlines said passengers aboard the July 5 flight “were reported to be noncompliant with the federal mask mandate, became disruptive to other customers and refused to follow crew member instructions while onboard.”
A maintenance issue initially delayed the 9:31 a.m. flight for two hours and passengers were asked to switch planes, the airline said. The teens were denied entry onto the second plane, forcing another three hour delay so their luggage could be removed.
One of the passengers on the plane to the Bahamas that was delayed by teens refusing to wear masks.YouTube
Airline officials ultimately decided to delay the flight to Tuesday, and the group of 43 students and one chaperone were permitted to fly after agreeing to comply with mask rules and flight crew instructions.
The post-graduation Bahamas trip was privately organized by students and their parents, according to WHDH 7News. The group’s only adult chaperone was no older than 22, CNN said.
Jean Holgerson, who son was among the group of 47 recent graduates of Winthrop High School, told WHDH the teens became “upset” after their peer had been kicked off the flight because they saw a woman walk to the bathroom without a mask.
“As soon as they walked away, some woman walked to the bathroom without a mask.” Holgerson said. “So now, the kids got a little bit upset how she can … and this that so at that point they might’ve gotten a little rowdy. No one swore, they were still respectful.”
“It wasn’t this big standoff like everyone is portraying. A representative from Breakaway Beach was there,” the exhausted mom noted. “We have 46 children that are saying this differently. I have no idea why some would fabricate that.”
An American Airlines flight to the Bahamas was canceled Monday night because some among a group of high school students, reportedly from Winthrop, refused to wear their masks. Flight 893 was ready to depart Charlotte, but a mechanical issue forced the passengers onto a different plane.That’s when fellow passengers say some among the group of teens allegedly refused to put on masks, in accordance with CDC guidelines.“I would not say all of them. I was 75% to 80% of them were being terrible kids, saying smart stuff,” one passenger said.“All they had to do was put the mask on, sit there, no smart mouth comments. And they couldn’t do it,” another passenger said. After hours of standoff the flight to Nassau was canceled. None of the Winthrop students were arrested.The flight cancellation forced other passengers — many of whom were on vacations — to rebook their trips.
BOSTON —
An American Airlines flight to the Bahamas was canceled Monday night because some among a group of high school students, reportedly from Winthrop, refused to wear their masks.
Flight 893 was ready to depart Charlotte, but a mechanical issue forced the passengers onto a different plane.
That’s when fellow passengers say some among the group of teens allegedly refused to put on masks, in accordance with CDC guidelines.
“I would not say all of them. I was 75% to 80% of them were being terrible kids, saying smart stuff,” one passenger said.
“All they had to do was put the mask on, sit there, no smart mouth comments. And they couldn’t do it,” another passenger said.
After hours of standoff the flight to Nassau was canceled. None of the Winthrop students were arrested.
The flight cancellation forced other passengers — many of whom were on vacations — to rebook their trips.
Airline executives said they are starting to see a path out of the coronavirus pandemic as more passengers resume travel, following a weekend when airport volumes hit their highest levels in a year.
Delta
DAL 2.33%
Air Lines Inc. bookings began picking up five or six weeks ago as people have begun making plans for spring and summer, Chief Executive Officer
Ed Bastian
said at an industry conference Monday.
“We’ve seen some glimmers of hope over the last year, but they’ve been false hope,” Mr. Bastian said. “But this seems like it’s real.”
Airline stocks climbed Monday. Shares of
United Airlines Holdings Inc.
UAL 8.26%
rose 8.3%, while shares of
American Airlines Group Inc.
AAL 7.70%
climbed 7.7% and Delta shares rose 2.3%.
The pandemic brought travel to a near halt last spring. Travel restrictions and fear of infection kept people at home and out of airports for most of the year: U.S. airlines carried 60% fewer passengers in 2020 than in 2019, bringing passenger traffic to the lowest level since the mid-1980s, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Major U.S. airlines lost about $35 billion in 2020. But on Monday, United and Delta said they could stop bleeding cash this month.
That was hard to imagine at the beginning of this year. Airline executives said January and February were even weaker than they expected, as a high numbers of cases, the rise of more contagious variants, and new Covid-19 testing requirements for people arriving from abroad had a chilling effect.
Executives said they remain cautious. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still advises against travel, and the number of people passing through U.S. airports is still half—or less—of what it was for most days in 2019, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
But the numbers are climbing. Airports screened nearly 1.36 million people Friday and more than 1.34 million people on Sunday, two of the busiest days since March 2020.
Numbers of new Covid-19 cases are dropping, and distribution of vaccine doses has picked up. President Biden said earlier this month that the U.S. will have enough vaccines for all American adults by the end of May.
Some states, including New York and Connecticut, are relaxing rules requiring that inbound travelers quarantine.
And there is more to do once people arrive. California, for instance, has paved the way for
Walt Disney Co.
’s Disneyland and other attractions to reopen at limited capacity if certain test positivity benchmarks are met. State and local governments—even in heavily restrictive states such as Michigan and Illinois—are allowing restaurants to seat some patrons indoors again.
Southwest Airlines Co.
LUV 1.75%
and JetBlue Airways Corp. also said Monday that more people are making plans to travel, booking vacations or trips to visit friends and family, helping to pare expected revenue declines this quarter.
Amy Curtis, who lives in Arizona, has been vaccinated since the end of February. When she learned over the weekend that her mother in Pennsylvania had also received her second shot, Ms. Curtis decided to book a visit.
“It was one of those impulsive things,” she said. “Life is so short—I feel like I need to take this opportunity. I don’t know when I may have it again.”
Ms. Curtis said she doesn’t yet feel comfortable traveling just for fun or vacation. But others are hitting beaches and ski resorts, according to airlines and analysts. JetBlue sold more bundled flight-and-hotel vacation packages last week than ever before, Chief Executive
Robin Hayes
said at the conference hosted by
JPMorgan Chase
& Co.
Bookings to destinations such as Florida and Hawaii, while still down from 2019 levels, are holding up better than other areas, according to data from ForwardKeys, a travel-analytics company. Domestic bookings were 42% of 2019 levels in the first week of January but were at 64% of 2019 levels in the first week of March, according to its data.
“There has been progressive growth in U.S. domestic bookings every week since the beginning of the year,” said
Olivier Ponti,
vice president of insights at ForwardKeys.
The recent uptick in flight bookings is helping to stem the amount of cash the carriers have been losing daily, executives said Monday. Airlines have been on track to burn through $150 million in cash a day during the first three months of this year, according to trade group Airlines for America.
United CEO
Scott Kirby
said at the conference Monday that the company expects its cash flow to turn positive, excluding debt payments, this month. Mr. Bastian also said Delta expects to stop burning cash as soon as this month.
“We know that we can’t yet put Covid in the rearview mirror,” Mr. Kirby said, noting that the airline remains unprofitable and would have to focus on repaying the debt it has taken on. But he said he expects there could be a steady travel boom on the way after a year when many people suspended or curtailed leisure experiences.
Airline executives have long said that travel demand would roar back once more people are vaccinated. While many international borders remain closed and businesses aren’t rushing to resume client meetings and conferences, executives said there are signs that pent-up demand is returning.
“Our last three weeks have been the best three weeks since the pandemic hit,”
American Airlines
AAL 7.70%
CEO
Doug Parker
said.
Airports in Paris and Singapore as well as airlines including United and JetBlue are experimenting with apps that verify travelers are Covid-free before boarding. WSJ visits an airport in Rome to see how a digital health passport works. Photo credit: AOKpass
Carriers are also on firmer financial footing, having secured three rounds of government aid to cover the costs of paying workers, in addition to billions of dollars of private funding. The American Rescue Act that President Biden signed into law last week includes $14 billion to cover salaries and benefits for airline workers in exchange for pledges not to furlough or lay off employees until the fall. That brings the total amount of government payroll support for airlines to $54 billion.
American Airlines also said last week it would raise $10 billion by putting up its frequent-flier program as collateral.
Mr. Parker said, “For the first time since this crisis hit a little over a year ago, we at American are not looking to go raise any money.”