Nov & Dec Travel

Hello everyone, I don't want to get into a debate about whether you should vaccinate or not. That is a personal choice. I am because I need to travel.

But we are potentially in for major travel disruptions in November and possibly into December. The airlines have mandated their employees to be fully vaccinated by Nov. 1st. I believe AA is later into Nov. But there appears to be a large percentage that are fighting back on the mandates. Will the employees follow suit with SouthWest? Who knows? But if the airlines follow though on the threats to fire the unvaccinated, travel will become a major mess.

My flight is scheduled out of CLT on Nov 12th with AA. I should be good regardless since their mandate I believe is set for Nov 24th and I return on Nov 21st. I am anxiously waiting to see what happens Nov 1st with the other airlines.

You know, this has been one crazy year trying to get back to the islands. Now this???

United instituted the requirement early and hit a 99% vaccination rate on 27 September.

I'm hopeful there won't be major disruptions.

(IMHO) I'm not sure of the relationship between airline flight interruptions and a employee mandated vaccination policy being the cause, is it factual or political narrative? The Southwest Airline CEO and the Southwest Airline Pilots Association both claim the weekend interruption is unrelated to mandated employee Covid vaccination, and I'm not sure why they would need to lie about it? Perhaps it is more likely to be related to the failure(s) of the airline industry to 'ramp-up' operations post pandemic and operations could be subject to a 'domino effect' until fully operational once again. That said, I do agree flight interruptions will likely be common for the next several months, if not longer.

Glad to see you getting back NDFANINNC and congrats on your win against the Hokies...

Thanks BAILAU. Wow, much better football game than I expected.

The only time you might experience a issue is during the peak travel days at Thanksgiving or Christmas or if there is sustained severe weather. Even then chances your fight will be disrupted are slim. Staffing is tight at all the airlines and airline managements were over scheduling trying to capture returning revenue. They have ramped the flying back down to match capacity and staffing. Many airlines functioned at a very high rate this summer. Delta set records for both completion rate and on time performance. The covid vaccination flap is a blip that will go away quickly. One of the issues is that pilots can’t fly for 48 hours after getting vaccinated. With most pilots now vaccinated that issue is fading. Most airlines in order to encourage voluntary vaccinations offered to drop and pay for trips aircrew missed because of this rule. Strangely managements were surprised to find large numbers of pilots vaccinating over holidays. This hurt Delta badly as a example last Easter. All that is pretty much in the rear view mirror now.

Thanks George. I was hoping you would chime in. MSM can be a bit misleading.