Emirates Operates First Flight with Fully Vaccinated Team

(25 Feb 2021) Emirates has operated its first flight with fully vaccinated frontline teams servicing customers at every touchpoint of the travel journey.

Flight EK215, which departed Dubai for Los Angeles at 08:30, was supported by check-in, security, Business and First Class lounge and boarding gate employees, as well as engineers, pilots and cabin crew who have made the choice to be fully vaccinated.

Also supporting the flight’s operations were fully vaccinated aircraft appearance, loading and special handling teams from dnata, as well as SkyCargo teams working on the cargo and logistics requirements for EK215.

The Emirates Group rolled out its vaccination drive at pace just over a month ago, and since then, close to 26,000, or 44%, of the group’s UAE frontline aviation workforce have received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Sinopharm vaccines.

Adel Al Redha, Chief Operating Officer, Emirates Airline, said, “Our operational workforce are at the aviation frontline, helping people get to where they need to be, and moving essential goods to global communities. Protecting our people with vaccinations is important – for them, for our community, for the smooth running of our operations, and also for our customers as it introduces of an additional layer of protection when they travel with us. We’ve seen a very positive response with high demand and take-up of the COVID19 vaccine from our colleagues at the operational frontline, and there’s continued momentum in the rate of vaccinations across the business.”

Nearly 5,000 Cabin and Flight Deck Crew have opted to receive both doses of the COVID19 vaccine. In addition, thousands more Emirates Group employees in other roles have taken their COVID19 vaccine through the company’s clinics and vaccination centres, while others have opted to take their vaccine at one of the many vaccination centres across the UAE.

The group’s vaccination centres have been running 12 hours a day, every day of the week to prioritise and provide aviation frontliners with the vaccine.

Al Redha added, “At the outset of the pandemic, Emirates implemented robust safety measures to protect and prioritise the safety of our customers and employees at all stages of the travel journey, and with the rapid progress of our own vaccination programme and high rates of take-up, more of our flights will soon be operating with fully vaccinated frontline employees. We are also confident that with more people being vaccinated, combined with strong safety measures in place, we can all look forward to the easing of border entry guidelines for many countries.”

The UAE currently has one of the world’s highest rate of vaccinations for its citizens and residents. So far, the UAE has administered over 5.4 million doses of the COVID19 vaccine, and Our World In Data, a research website based at Oxford University, recently reported that the country’s distribution rate stands at 55.27 doses per 100 people, ranking it the second highest in the world.

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