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Cathay Pacific airlines tells employees 'get vaccinated or risk losing your job'

Cathay Pacific airlines tells employees 'get vaccinated or risk losing your job'

Cathay Airlines

In one of the toughest policies by an airline, Cathay Pacific Ltd has notified on Thursday that all of its Hong Kong-based employees must get vaccinated against coronavirus by August 31, or risk losing their jobs.

This rule is valid for the Chinese city-based flight attendants and pilots. Cathay said the need to segregate vaccinated crew from un-vaccinated ones have complicated the staff rostering process, something that the airline is struggling with because of Hong Kong’s strict quarantine rules on return.

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The said rules have been made lenient for a crew that has attained a full vaccination against the novel coronavirus. Only fully vaccinated crew is allowed to operate to certain high-risk destinations, especially on
“bubble” flights that are quarantine-free.

In a statement, the airline said that they “understand there will be some who cannot take a vaccine and we will look into accommodating them on a short-term basis where we can,".

However, the airline will “review the future employment of those who are unable to become vaccinated and assess whether they can continue to be employed as aircrew with Cathay Pacific."

After a previous warning that vaccinations might become compulsory, according to the company’s own figures around 90 per cent of their pilots and more than 65 per cent of the flight crew has already been vaccinated, or have vaccination appointments.

Different airlines have undertaken different policies to ensure the vaccination of their crew.

Earlier this week, US-based United Airlines said that from August onwards it would only allow fully vaccinated pilots and cabin crew to work on high-risk destinations flights. On the other hand, Delta Air Lines Inc announced last month that all its new hires would have to be vaccinated.

While Emirates has been providing free vaccination to its crew since January. The airlines also informed its airlines that they have to either get vaccinated or pay for regular covid tests to prove that they are not infected.

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Vinod Janardhanan

Vinod Janardhanan, PhD writes on international affairs, defence, Indian news, entertainment and technology and business with special focus on artificial intelligence. He is the de...Read More