Originally Posted by
sailingfun
That would beg the question of why did they require it in the first place. They are locking themselves out of government contract travel and mail contracts that can be lucrative even for a smaller carrier. It’s about recruiting pilots, not much else makes sense.
The mandate came right after the additional investment from Black Rock, which as another user pointed out here also has stakes in big pharma, so I'm sure that was part of the deal. Also, it was a mandate for new hires, not current employees, and they have removed the new hire mandate now. Maybe they tried it, showed Black Rock it was hurting recruiting and removed it. When was the last class? Did they make a big deal about vaccinations or mask wearing inside during class? Maybe the tide is turning in the industry as more pilot groups like SWA are actually simply refusing to comply and telling management to fire everyone and see what happens to the airline and more people are realizing these vaccinations do nothing to prevent you from getting covid and can have some pretty serious negative side effects that could very well cause a pilot to lose his medical.