A federal judge in Texas blasted United for its treatment of employees with religious objections to the company’s coronavirus vaccine mandate, saying its use of indefinite unpaid leave to accommodate the workers is a “trifling pittance.” While US District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth on Monday denied a request by the workers to put the mandate on hold, he said he was “disturbed by United’s seemingly calloused approach to its employees’ deeply personal concerns with injecting a foreign substance into their bodies.” The judge, appointed by former President Donald Trump, said the airline’s treatment of objectors is particularly galling to him because United said in court that “there is virtually no chance to transmit Covid-19 on its planes.” The harsh critique shows judges may scrutinize how companies handle religious objections to the vaccines as the pandemic wears on, particularly as the Biden administration seeks to implement a mandate for employees at all companies with at least 100 workers. United granted about 80% of religious exemptions even as it criticized them, Pittman said. He pointed to a town-hall video in which CEO Scott Kirby expressed “skepticism and apparent disdain for any religiously-motivated exemption requests.” But the judge denied the request by workers for a temporary restraining order, saying they’d failed to prove “irreparable harm” from lost income. The impact of unpaid leave could still be reversed through damages if their lawsuit prevails, he said. “The court’s analysis must be guided by the law, not by its sympathy,” Pittman said. United said it was pleased with the decision.<br/>
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Lufthansa said Tuesday it raised E1.5b ($1.73b) in a corporate bond sale, its third bond sale this year, in order to boost the company's liquidity and refinance debt. Earlier this year, the airline company, which was hit by a pandemic-related tourism crunch, raised a total of about E2.6b in February and July by issuing bonds. "The long-term funds, which were again raised at attractive terms, will be used to further strengthen the Lufthansa Group's liquidity and refinance existing debt," finance chief Remco Steenbergen said. The company said it issued bonds of two years and five-and-a-half years. This placement is one of several successful capital market transactions that will contribute to the full repayment of the government stabilization measures in Germany, it added. The tranche with a term until November 2023 bears interest of 1.625% per year and the tranche with a term until May 2027 has an interest rate of 2.875%, according to the statement.<br/>
Austrian Airlines is planning to focus on leisure destinations in 2022, as it acknowledges likely strong competition from low-cost cost carriers at Vienna airport. Announcing its summer 2022 schedule on 9 November, the Lufthansa Group airline says “tourist destinations will… dominate the 2022 summer flight schedule”, with Greece, southern Italy and the Balearic Islands set to receive significant capacity. Among its specific route announcements, the Star Alliance carrier will operate three daily flights to Palma de Mallorca and daily services to Sicily. Noting that it will deploy 10 more aircraft on European routes than it did in summer 2021, Austrian describes its plans as a “decisive stand against the expected increase in competition from low-cost airlines”. Austrian faces competition from the likes of Ryanair at Vienna, with the Irish group announcing in late September its “largest ever” flying programme from the capital city, featuring a total of 90 routes served by 19 aircraft based at the airport. Wizz Air – which has attempted to increase its footprint across Europe during the Covid-19 crisis – also has a base at Vienna, ranking third behind Austrian and Ryanair for capacity in November 2021, according to Cirium schedules data. <br/>
Air New Zealand’s new vaccination policy for domestic flights strikes the right balance of being inclusive while also reducing the risk of Covid-19 spreading in-flight and to other parts of the country, experts say. The national carrier on Tuesday said that from mid-December customers would be required to show proof of either full vaccination against Covid-19 or a negative pre-departure test before checking into a domestic flight. The policy applies to all passengers aged 12 or older travelling on a domestic Air New Zealand flight and follows earlier moves from the airline to mandate Covid-19 vaccination for most of its staff as well as international travellers. Duncan Cotterill health and safety expert and partner Olivia Lund said it made sense for Air New Zealand to implement the policy because under the Health and Safety at Work Act it had an obligation to keep people safe. Its new vaccination and testing programme would achieve that, she said. The policy was more inclusive than many other companies had been introducing, in that it allowed unvaccinated people to continue to fly, she said. “They are trying to balance the interests of both unvaccinated persons and vaccinated persons.” Being a monopoly service provider in some regions might have been a driver behind that decision-making, she said. Air New Zealand was operating in a high risk space and could probably have justified restricting travel to vaccinated travellers but by allowing a negative test component it was being more inclusive, she said.<br/>