A federal judge in Texas on Monday ruled that United Airlines’ employee vaccine policy can proceed. The airline has one of the strictest employee vaccine policies in the country. In September, it said that staff who receive medical or religious exemptions would be placed on unpaid leave. Six employees filed suit to block the policy in September. US District Judge Mark Pittman wrote in his ruling: “it is not for the Court to decide if United’s vaccine mandate is bad policy. Rather, it is the Court’s role to determine if Plaintiffs carried their burden to obtain a preliminary injunction.” United said Monday that the roughly 2,000 employees who were granted religious or medical exemptions to its policy could apply for non-customer facing roles and that those who do not apply will be put on leave. “We are working to identify non-customer facing roles where accommodated employees can apply and continue working until it is safe for them to their return to their current positions,” it said. United has said that more than 96% of its 67,000-person US workforce is vaccinated.<br/>
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United Airlines on Monday said it is working to identify “non-customer facing” roles for employees exempted from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The comments came after a US federal judge ruled the company can impose the mandate on its employees that provides only unpaid leave for workers who are exempted for medical or religious reasons. United has provided around 2,000 exemptions for religious and medical reasons. If exempted employees decline a non-customer facing role, they will be placed on leave, the carrier said. <br/>
The CE of Canada's largest carrier should have to improve his French as part of his annual board review, the country's No. 2 government official said on Monday as a language controversy dogged the airline. Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau pledged last week to improve his French skills and apologized for remarks suggesting he did not need to speak French, Canada's second language, even though the airline is officially bilingual. Language remains a sensitive issue in mostly French-speaking Quebec, the country's second-most-populous province, where unhappiness over the dominance of English helped the rise of the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) in the 1970s. Rousseau's comments and decision to give a speech almost entirely in English triggered criticism from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and in Montreal, where the airline is headquartered. In a letter to Air Canada's board made public on Monday, deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland said Rousseau's ability to communicate in French "should be incorporated as one of his key performance goals established by the board and play an important part in the board’s evaluation of his annual performance." Freeland, who is also Canada's finance minister, said the ability to communicate in French should become a criterion for promotion to senior positions at the airline.<br/>
Air New Zealand's CEO Greg Foran says the process of proving vaccination or COVID-19 status before boarding any of its domestic flights will be "seamless and elegant". On Tuesday morning, the airline announced it will be requiring customers travelling domestically to prove they are either fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or have tested negative before flying. Foran said the popularity of the Air NZ app means the process won't take any longer than the current check-in procedure, stating no physical checks will be taking place. "The way it will work is that if you've got the Air New Zealand app - by the way about 80% of our customers do and use that frequently - all you're going to need to do is with a touch of a button connect through to the My Vaccine Pass, and that will certify you as being vaccinated and ready to fly and digitally produce your boarding pass and you're good to go," he said. Foran said the My Vaccine Pass is a key catalyst in Air NZ being able to introduce this restriction in a way that will allow customers to have a reasonably seamless experience. He said Air NZ's digital team had been working closely with the Government to make sure the digital pass is fit for purpose and expects it to be rolled out in mid-December.<br/>