Delta CEO: Fees on unvaxed employees are working

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told an audience of Detroit business leaders Friday that the airline’s forthcoming $200-per-month surcharge for unvaccinated employees is pressuring more workers to get the shots and that he doesn’t expect U.S. business travel to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels in 2022.

Bastian, 64, appeared Friday at the Weston Book Cadillac hotel in downtown Detroit for a meeting of the Detroit Economic Club. He was on stage for more than 30 minutes for a question-and-answer session about the future of airline travel.

Delta, the nation’s biggest airline, saw a big rebound in U.S. travel this summer that showed “enormous pent-up demand,” Bastian said.

In late August, Delta announced a future $200-per-month surcharge for employees on the company’s self-insured health plan who aren’t fully vaccinated for COVID-19. This surcharge is fair, he said, because the average cost to Delta for an employee’s COVID-19 hospital stay is $50,000.

The vaccination rate for employees was 75% when the policy was announced, and now is over 90%, he said.

By Tribune News Service