Airline CEOs want governments to mandate Covid vaccines for international travelers

Global airline CEOs have no plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for travelers anytime soon. Instead, the industry will follow country-specific guidelines and require vaccines based on national rules in what many believe will become a de facto mandate for international flyers. That’s the word at the trade group IATA Annual General Meeting in Boston on Monday. “I’m totally supportive of it,” United CEO Scott Kirby said of an international traveler mandate. But asked whether the carrier will implement such a requirement, he said the airline “will just follow the government rules.” United was the first — and one of the few — U.S. carriers to mandate Covid-19 jabs for staff in August. The airline has achieved a more than 99.5 percent vaccination rate through that policy with the added stick of unpaid leave or worse to staff who do not get their shots. But, like with staff mandates in the US, Kirby is in the minority among global airline CEOs supporting a traveler mandate — even if he has no plans on implementing on at United. Most leaders prefer to leave such mandates to national governments, which they are then more than happy to follow. Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr said that by their latest estimate 90 percent of the airline’s workforce have gotten their jabs without a mandate. “Slowly we’ll get there — that flying will only be available to vaccinated or recovered passengers,” he said. Air New Zealand and Qantas are the only two major carriers to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for international travelers. The former will require it from February 1, while the latter has said it will do so when long-haul services resume, which Qantas forecasts will occur in November. <br/>