United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby recently sat down with David Ignatius of The Washington Post. Live and Let’s Fly will examine the wide-ranging interview in a series of posts.
United Airlines CEO Addresses Vaccine-Only Sections + Mandatory Vaccines
Kirby is asked about offering special seating sections for passengers who have been vaccinated as a reward or incentive to promote vaccinations. Ignatius jokes, “It’s not Economy Plus; it’s vaccinated plus.”
Kirby politely responds that it would not be happening:
Yeah. It sounds like a great idea, and we have thought about it. But I think almost any of those ideas run afoul of the regulatory requirements that we have, and absent a government mandating vaccines to fly or a government rule, it’s probably not something we can do unilaterally from a customer perspective.
Note that he doesn’t dismiss the concept of a vaccinated section. Rather, he suggests that regulatory burdens prevent it. HIPAA is thrown around so often and so negligently. It would not apply if passengers were offered special seating for voluntarily sharing health information. Period.
So I don’t see the regulatory barriers. I also don’t see vaccine sections as theoretically as ridiculous as smoking and non-smoking sections (it still turned the entire aircraft into a stinky ashtray). My issue with vaccine sections is that they just do not make sense if vaccines are effective. So what if a vaccinated person sits around unvaccinated people. Isn’t that the point of vaccines? Isn’t that the point of this vaccine?
But Kirby notes we may see de facto vaccination flights based upon new international entry requirements.
That said, my guess is that most long-haul international borders are going to require you to be vaccinated to go. For anybody that wants to travel long haul and go to Europe this summer to go to New Zealand or Australia our North American winter, I suspect you’re going to have to have a vaccine.
Right now, there’s three countries in Europe that are open: Iceland, Greece, and Croatia. But you have to have been vaccinated to go, and by the way, demand is through the roof for those flights because it’s a place that people can go. When the EU president talked about it, talked about it as requiring a vaccine–we have discussions between the U.S. and U.K. ongoing. My guess is that there’s going to be some government fiat that requires vaccines internationally but unlikely that anything, at least in the foreseeable future domestically, will be requiring a vaccine, and I think it would require some government support/action in order to make that legally possible.
Kirby is actually incorrect here. Iceland does require proof of full vaccination. But not Croatia or Greece. Either will accept a negative PCR test not older than 72 hours in lieu of proof of vaccination. For better or for worse (and I believe it is for the worst), that option of presenting a negative test or proof of vaccination will allow many skeptical Americans to avoid the vaccination and yet still travel.
So I would disagree with Kirby on both the likelihood (and also the constitutionally) of a “government fiat” required for international travel. Again, let me emphasize: please get vaccinated.
CONCLUSION
Kirby discounts the legality vaccination sections, which are likely legal, but hints at a government fiat requiring vaccines, which I view as likely illegal. Kirby’s a smart man and I hate the “stay in your lane” comments, but I recommend Kirby has lunch with United’s legal counsel on the nuances of vaccine policy.
“Sir, would you prefer the Republican or Democrat section?”
“Umm, is there anything available in Moderate Democrat?”
“Yes sir, we can put you in the window exit row and offer you complimentary ear plugs and a mask.”
would rather we have mandatory vaccination to travel while also ending the mask requirement. With the vaccines as effective as they are, the masks are now merely woke virtue signaling
I just think it would be a bad idea for any airline to implement something like this. I don’t think we need yet another way to segregate ourselves, we do it enough already: politics, religion, whatever BS “woke virtue signaling” is – we have enough of this kind of garbage. Can we still effectively prove someone is vaccinated when anyone can download the card and fill it out? How then can an airline prove you are vaccinated or claim to know? The practicals make this unlikely for now.
I think this is a stupid idea that serves no legitimate purpose. However, I like the commenters suggestions for a Conservative and Leftist section. We’d all be happier physically separated on the basis of race/religion/ideology. I appreciate people who recognize the value of personal freedom and who share common physical appearance (race) and have the same values (christian).
This is comes up with the orthodox jews (males) who aren’t allowed by their religion to sit next to women they are unmarried or unrelated to. Is it really a big deal if Orthodox Jews create an airline that caters to the orthodox community and has orthodox only seating. As long as non orthodox are free to create their own airlines ( of course 99.9% that operate currently would cater to non orthodox), it’s not a problem except to people who object to anything that doesn’t affect them out of meanness. I personally have no skin in the game. It doesn’t affect me one way or the other if orthodox jews are accommodated. However, why object to a rational solution to the problem. If orthodox jews want to have their own airline so they can sit according to the religion, let them.
I am of the view that now vaccines are freely available in the US, absolutely there should be vaccinated only flights, all commercial flights should be vaccinated only. You should need to be vaccinated to pass the security gate and be able to travel. Government vaccination records, just like the do-not fly list should be used, not rely on easy to forge pieces of card. Remember the vaccines are only 95% effective, so if I am sitting in the middle row with strangers either side, .95 x .95 x .95 = ~.85 and so after a few hours of flight there is a only a 85% security by all being vaccinated, so could still be a 15% chance of possible illness by my math.
You need to be vaccinated for school, spending hours close to others… I see no issue with the need to be vaccinated for travel. If you chose not be be vaccinated, why should you benefit from the reduction in illness due to those that do the sensible socially minded action….. sort of like obeying red and green traffic lights, keeping to the right hand side of the road in the US, not smoking on a plane, paying your taxes, etc…. things you need to do to be a part of a functioning society.
Because that always worked back in the days when there were smoking/non-smoking sections. In reality, everyone was in the smoking section.
@PlaneSailing
I am of the view that restaurants should ban overweight and obese people from entering. They are a threat to themselves and a threat to public health and public coffers. Close to three million die from obesity-related illnesses each year globally. I think COVID-19 is “intersectional” with that.
Your explanation of vaccine efficacy displays your ignorance. 95% efficacy absolutely does not mean you have a 5% chance of getting infected.
https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-explained.html
If airlines are private businesses and should be allowed to ban unvaccinated passengers, why shouldn’t they be allowed to have smoking on board? Their planes, their policies. As for taxes, I see you side with the jackbooted thugs.
@CargoCult. While PlaneSailing’s math may be off, that does not negate your own ignorance. Bottom line is, there is still a chance, though minimal. However, as far as I know, there is 0% chance an obese person is going to infect me with obesity by entering a restaurant. As such your analogy is pathetic. And why I hope you (people) are all forced into the ultimate irony within this entire nightmare – that it’s you in the end that are all forced to hide in your basements all because you are no longer welcome in the world. You can then work on more of your “theories” and conspiracies while we laugh from afar.
Wait, I’m sorry, forgot, you can have fun in Mexico, or even Moldova. Mazel Tov! I’ll toast you from Emirates First Class this summer while you ponder a trip to Pensacola or Chisinau or even the exotic beaches of Cancun. If it’s good enough for Ted Cruz you should do fine.
@PlaneSailing that is some funky-ass math. Your math assumes that there’s a 100% chance you will get COVID if you weren’t vaccinated?
For the kids reading, please stay in school, and don’t do drugs.
“EU-President”? Another example of a allegedly educated American looking at the world from his bubble… There is no such thing as an EU-president, Mr. Kirby…
@Stuart
Perhaps you won’t become obese by sitting near an obese person, but social contagion of obesity is not something I made up. Do you deny that obesity is a larger problem than COVID-19 and one the public health establishment has seemingly given up on countering? Are you a “person with obesity?” Obesity drastically increases the chances of someone getting very sick or dying from COVID-19. How is this not an “intersectional” issue? Anyone who gets infected while in public has chosen to be in that place, so who is at fault? The vast majority of people are not at risk of dying from this virus, so why should we have to bend over backwards to protect those who refuse to take care of themselves?
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/health/25cnd-fat.html
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12343-is-obesity-contagious/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/should-we-treat-obesity-contagious-disease
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2668504
What conspiracies do I subscribe to? That the public health establishment has become more concerned about progressivism than science? That Fauci is on record admitting he lied about masks and herd immunity? Did I ever say I opposed vaccination? I plan on getting a live attenuated one for COVID-19 once it is available. I am in no rush to get vaccinated as I am neither old nor obese and I don’t believe that “science” knows what the long-term consequences of the mRNA vaccine are. Anyone who says he does is a liar. Live attenuated vaccines will be better than the targeted mRNA ones anyway.
What I do oppose, vehemently, is coercion by the state and know-it-all progressives who think they should be able to dictate how their fellow citizens behave. If they want to play that game, I think fat folx should be forced to eat less and ignorant people should be forced to learn more. Reeducation camps, anyone? If airlines are truly private and allowed to discriminate as they please, then we should be able to have racist/sexist/___ist airlines as well (I suppose we do, in a way, with the woke/DEI policies in place now). You are just another smug Democrat who loves the aroma of his own flatulence and can’t believe everyone else shouldn’t have to love it as well.
You presume I can’t travel around the world just as easily, if not more so, than you. I recall advising you on how to enter Europe last month. Emirates, how fittingly bling for someone from a city built entirely on graft.
I only hope woke UAL does this. Good old Scotty is a deep plant from AA. He will run them out of business.
And please hire all those unqualified pilots too. I will watch the NTSB website to see how that works out for ya!
@cargocult
Obesity is indeed one of the intersectional factors with Covid, but so are about 20 other highly prevalent health conditions. Shall we similarly ban everyone with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, auto-immune disorders, cancers, etc from going to restaurants and participating in society? I find this much less practical than inoculating the general population, for free and at their convenience, against a deadly virus, just like we routinely inoculate children for deadly diseases in the developed world without any of the same stigma.
Your link to the scientific article is interesting. Yes, the vaccines are effective. They are able to ensure that you are 20 times less likely to get sick with Covid than an unvaccinated person. But “sick” is the operative word, because the studies documented whether the vaccines provide “…protection from having symptoms, not protection from being infected,” Barker said. It isn’t the having Covid that was as much of the immediate issue as the dying from it, hence, the vaccines first and foremost look to prevent serious illness and death. You can in theory still be a virus carrier even if you don’t get physically sick, and that’s why sitting among a bunch of unvaccinated people in an airplane is a bad idea, and that’s why everyone should vaccinate. Until such time as a better solution, or the active virus vaccine you so desire, becomes available.
@Stuart
People would listen to your argument more if you didn’t have such a nasty tone. You can make your point without the name calling. How about some civility?
Wow, cargocult really off the rails here after he got made to look like a chump on OMAAT yesterday with his his anti-mRNA drivel. Pretending you are an expert and that you are smarter than the scientists and sowing mistrust and disinformation is why vax rates are dropping like crazy right now.
@UA-TDS
When did I ever question the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines? I have no doubt that they are effective account most variants out there right now. Do you even understand what vaccine efficacy really means and how that is not the point I was addressing? You apparently are a “follow the science” type, which I read as “I say that I follow the science to sound smart when I actually have zero competence to judge the science.” I never claimed to be smarter than the “scientists,” but common sense would let you know that manipulating a system as complex as the immune system might have unforeseen consequences. The guy who tried to refute what I said on OMAAT was spouting falsehoods which I could not counter due to Lucky’s ridiculous censorship. He is just as bad as you. If I were a malicious sort, I would say that it would be delicious to see those vaccine shamers who got the mRNA vaccines be hit hard by future variants and have their innate immune systems rendered incapacitated, but I am not malicious and I don’t necessarily think that will be the case. Keep hating and jumping on those boxes, OPM tough guy! You can see from the comments on OMAAT that at least a few people are catching on to Lucky’s leftist authoritarian streak.
As well-thought out of an idea as having smoking and non-smoking sections.