United said Thursday that more employees have uploaded proof of a Covid-19 vaccination, driving down the number of staff facing termination for not complying with the company’s inoculation mandate by almost half. The Chicago-based airline started the process of firing 593 workers as of Tuesday, though final separation takes weeks. More employees this week uploaded their cards, and by Thursday, just 320 employees hadn’t done so. United has the strictest vaccine mandate policy of any US airline. In August, the company told its 67,000 US employees that they must be vaccinated against Covid-19 this fall to continue working there. Some 2,000 United employees have sought exemptions for medical or religious reasons. “Our vaccine policy continues to prove requirements work — in less than 48 hours, the number of unvaccinated employees who began the process of being separated from the company has been cut almost in half, dropping from 593 to 320,” United said. Earlier Thursday, Tyson Foods, which also mandates vaccines, said more than 90% of its 120,000-person workforce has been vaccinated against Covid. <br/>
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The South American carrier Avianca expects to achieve a total capacity recovery during 2022’s second quarter. Slowly but surely, Avianca is recovering its pre-pandemic numbers in terms of routes, frequencies, and seats. Nevertheless, the airline is still lagging in terms of passengers and revenue. On September 20, 2021, Avianca stated that it is currently offering 99 routes across South America, North America, and Europe. It is scheduling more than 2,680 flights per week, with a capacity of more than 400,000 seats, having one of the “most robust map routes in the region.” According to the airline, it has a load factor of over 80% in most of its routes. Moreover, the small amount of routes that it hasn’t reactivated are due to the travel restrictions. For instance, Avianca is not flying to the UK because the British government is not allowing the entrance of people coming from Colombia. By the end of 2021, Avianca expects to have recovered between 70 and 80% of its pre-pandemic operations. Additionally, it hopes to regain 100% of the capacity between April and June 2022. Nevertheless, any change, like new travel restrictions or new waves of COVID-19 infections in the region, could impact Avianca’s recovery.<br/>
SAS is planning to launch two new subsidiaries based out of Copenhagen Kastrup, SAS Connect and SAS Link, to bypass costly collective labour agreements at the mainline unit, Norwegian daily Dagens Næringsliv has reported citing union communications. COO Simon Pauck Hansen reportedly told unions that the new entities would launch in 2022. Each of them will have its own Air Operator's Certificate, and eventually, they will expand to cover all three SAS bases - Copenhagen, Stockholm Arlanda, and Oslo Gardermoen. While SAS does not plan to liquidate the mainline unit, all future growth in terms of manpower is expected to occur through the two new units. In March 2021, SAS reached a new one-year collective labour agreement with its pilots union involving all three of its home markets. Despite agreeing to the pilots' terms, the carrier then said it was disappointed as the revised terms did not provide sufficient long-term cost-savings. SAS did not respond to request for comment.<br/>