With more than seven weeks remaining for federal contractors to have their employees vaccinated against COVID-19, JetBlue Airways said virtually its entire staff will have taken the shot.
"Out of 21,000 crewmembers, only about 300 have said they do not plan to get vaccinated," a 99.98 percentage rate, JetBlue told Fox Business. "A limited number of crewmembers have indicated interest in a religious or medical accommodation, and we will work through these individually to review and evaluate each of those crewmember's situations. It will take some time to work through these applications and we expect that process will continue even after January 4."
January 4, 2022 is the deadline set by the Biden Administration for all federal contractors - which includes virtually all major U.S. airlines - to have their employees vaccinated against the virus.
The deadline was originally set for December 8, but airlines are suffering greatly from staff shortages, so the White House agreed to extend the date past the holiday travel season.
JetBlue told Fox Business it would be ready for the holidays.
"We have hired many new crewmembers this year in anticipation of a very busy holiday peak season, and we will be ready to get our customers where they need to go during the holidays," the airline said.
JetBlue added that it has no plans to terminate or furlough employees once the deadline passes.
"The government has said they do not want people to lose their jobs because of the mandate, and we certainly do not want any of our incredible crewmembers to leave the airline," the carrier told Fox. "Consistent with that, we do not plan to separate anyone from the company on Jan. 5, and our first step after Jan. 4 is to reach out to the small number of unvaccinated crewmembers and discuss with them their concerns and review options."
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