Delta Will No Longer Charge Unvaccinated Employees A $200 Health Insurance Surcharge
Delta Air Lines will end its $200 monthly health insurance surcharge for its unvaccinated employees.
The surcharge was added in November due to hospital stay charges for each employee with COVID-19 costing Delta about $50,000. It was also meant to encourage employees to get vaccinated.
“We’ve dropped as of this month the additional insurance surcharge given the fact that we really do believe that the pandemic has moved to a seasonal virus,” CEO Ed Bastian announced during a Wednesday quarterly meeting call.
“Any employees that haven’t been vaccinated will not be paying extra insurance costs going forward,” Bastian said.
A Delta spokesperson said the surcharge will end on April 30.
Delta did not go into detail about how many employees were paying the surcharge, but more than 95% of its 75,000 workers had been vaccinated since January, according to the company.
Any new hires for Delta are also now required to show proof of vaccination.
Delta has supported ending the mask mandate for air travel. In March, Bastian and other airline executives sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to eliminate “COVID-era transportation mandates such as the federal mask requirements on airlines.”
In a statement at the time, Bastian said, “Current data and science show it’s time to move from mandates to guidance and personal health choices.”
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