United Airlines has become the first major airline to make vaccination mandatory for all its US employees. The airline has asked all its employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by this fall and upload their vaccination card to a company site. 

“We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees. But, we have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you’re at work, and the facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated,” United CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart told employees in a memo Friday, The Hill reported. 

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All of the company’s 67,000 employees will be required to get vaccinated against COVID, except for those exempted for medical or religious reasons. The employees were told that all those who “upload their records to Flying Together before September 20th – we’ll offer an additional day of pay.”

The decision comes amid a surge in cases, linked to the highly-contagious delta variant.

“Over the last 16 months, Scott has sent dozens of condolences letters to the family members of United employees who have died from COVID-19. We’re determined to do everything we can to try to keep another United family from receiving that letter,” United’s executives told employees. 

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With this decision, United has joined the likes of some major companied such as Tyson Foods, Facebook and Microsoft, who have made vaccination mandatory for their employees. 

In an attempt to prove that air travel is safe, United and several other airlines had pointed to low infection rates among their employees.

“At United, but also at our large competitors, our flight attendants have lower COVID infection rates than the general population, which is one of multiple data points that speaks to the safety on board airplanes,” Kirby said during a Politico event in September.