United Airlines will allow unvaccinated employees to return to customer-facing positions beginning March 28.
Some 2,200 United employees who chose not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 despite the carriers’ vaccine mandate were granted reasonable accommodation status on health or religious grounds. Those staffers have been on leave or re-assigned from their normal positions since the fall.
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In a letter to employees Thursday, United vice president of human resources Kirk Limacher said those employees will soon be allowed to return to their normal positions because Covid-19 cases have dropped more than 90% since their January peak, while hospitalizations are down more than two-thirds.
“We expect Covid case counts, hospitalizations and deaths to continue to decline over the next few weeks,” Limacher wrote.
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Five United employees who were granted reasonable accommodation status have died, Limacher said.
“All loss of life is tragic, but at United our vaccinated employees have been significantly less likely to lose their lives to Covid,” he wrote.