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Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has become the first airline in the world with all its operating pilots and cabin crew vaccinated to help curb the spread of COVID-19 and give passengers who travel with the airline peace of mind.
This achievement was made possible through Etihad’s ‘Protected Together’ employee vaccination initiative which was formally launched in January this year. Building on the UAE’s Choose to Vaccinate campaign, Protected Together is about helping staff take proactive, personal steps towards protecting themselves against COVID-19.
Following the UAE Government’s target to vaccinate half of the UAE population by the end of March 2021, Etihad is ahead of schedule with over 75% of its entire workforce already having received at least one dose of the vaccine. With even more activity still planned as part of the Protected Together initiative, this figure will continue to grow as more employees step forward and choose to vaccinate.
Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Aviation Group, said:
“We proactively made the vaccine available to all our employees to not only help combat the effects of COVID-19 but to make travellers feel confident and reassured the next time they fly with us. We are the only airline in the world to make COVID-19 testing mandatory for every passenger and crew member before every flight and now, we’re the first airline in the world with 100% vaccinated crew on board.”
Would you be more comfortable flying on a 100% vaccinated flight?
It is one thing for an airline to vaccinate its employees, but the much bigger question is what businesses will require from customers. Some countries will inevitably insist on a type of ‘vaccine passport’, so any decision would be taken out of the company’s hands in those circumstances. But, what about travel to countries that choose not to require proof of vaccination ?
The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines has been a remarkable success, but vaccines are not 100% effective. For a vaccine programme to be as effective as possible, the proportion of people who have received a vaccine needs to be as high as possible. In the UK, the Government is of course extremely reluctant to even hint at anything remotely like forcing people to be vaccinated, but perhaps market forces will effectively lead to something similar in reality.
If businesses believed that customers (and staff) would generally prefer it if everyone on a plane (or perhaps even in a restaurant, or at a hotel) had proof of vaccination, it would not be surprising to see at least some businesses make it a requirement.
Would you be more comfortable knowing that everyone on your flight had been vaccinated?
Photos: (c) Etihad Airways
If it starts travel again and flying safetly then i,am all for it.
Well said! Safety should always be a priority for airlines so if prospective passengers cannot provide evidence of vaccination then they are compromising the safety of others so should not be allowed to fly. Human rights etc. take a secondary rating in this case.
You will always have people who don’t believe in vaccine or don’t want to have it for whatever reason and they will feel victimised by vaccine passports etc.
However I suspect that most countries will probably ask for this before letting travellers in, mainly to protect their own population.
For example, Seychelles now allows anyone who has had both doses of the vaccine (not just the first dose) and can provide the evidence, to travel quarantine free. If you are not vaccinated, you will have to quarantine.
I suspect this will be one the norm even if the UK government is not acknowledging this.
Considering the vaccine does not stop me from getting the virus, carrying the virus, or passing it on to someone else, why I would I possibly feel safer??
I have zero qualifications as a virologist or vaccinologist, indeed I don’t even know if the latter is a word, but I am reasonably confident that the vaccine both assists in you not getting the virus and you not passing it on to someone else.
The vaccines stop you from becoming badly ill, because your body’s defense mechanisms have been trained by the vaccine to recognise and deal with the threat before it becomes serious. Nobody really knows just yet whether you are still contagious whilst your vaccine-enhanced antibodies are dealing with the virus.
I am afraid you have fallen victim to the mainstream media’s properganda. The vaccine simply reduces your symptoms of the virus – essentially less people will die from their symptoms if they are vaccinated. Which is why the vaccination programs started with those most vulnerable. But it will not do anything to prevent you from getting the virus or spreading it to others.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210203-why-vaccinated-people-may-still-be-able-to-spread-covid-19
The vaccine protects you from getting it but it is not 100% effective, so it wont definitely stop you from getting it. However dependent on what vaccine you get and how many doses you have had (two is better than one), the risk of you getting the current variant of the virus is reduced but most importantly it reduces the risk of you getting seriously ill or die from the disease.
If you do get it, you can still pass it on but unless you are being tested very week, you won’t know and also there are a lot of asymptomatic carriers out there.
So having a vaccine is still important.
Apologies but you have not read the article – there is no evidence that the vaccine stops you from getting the virus. The very point of a vaccine is create immunity. This is not a vaccine if it does not prevent immunity. I agree, and the science agrees, that this vaccine was created to soften the symptoms of the virus, and those who are vulnerable should take it for that very reason. However, if you are fit and healthy with no underlying health problems, and the vaccine does not stop me from getting the virus or passing it to someone else, then what is the point of it? To answer the question that was originally posed – I would not feel safer travelling in a plane that was 100% vaccinated, but if I was a vulnerable person then I would feel safer travelling when I, and only, have been vaccinated.