How United decided to lead on vaccine mandates

Scott Kirby is the CEO of United, a role he assumed in early 2020, just a couple of months after Covid-19 began sweeping across the country. Kirby told the company’s 67,000 US employees last summer that they would lose their jobs if they weren’t vaccinated by Sept. 27. About 99.7% of United’s workforce is now vaccinated. In a recent interview, Kirby discusses how and why he decided to make United the first US airline — and one of the first large corporations — to impose a vaccine mandate. Story is a lightly edited transcript of conversation.<br/>