UAE Covid vaccine: Emirates operates flight with fully vaccinated staff

On Sunday morning, flight EK215 from Dubai to Los Angeles was serviced by employees who have received both doses of the jab. These included check-in, security, Business and First Class lounge and boarding gate employees, as well as engineers, pilots and cabin crew.

The flight's operations were supported by fully vaccinated aircraft appearance, loading and special handling teams from dnata, as well as Emirates SkyCargo teams.

The Emirates Group rolled out its vaccination drive over a month ago. Since then, close to 26,000 - or 44 per cent - 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 Covid-19 vaccine from our colleagues at the operational frontline, and there's continued momentum in the rate of vaccinations across the business."

The airline said nearly 5,000 cabin and flight deck crew have opted to receive both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Al Redha added: " ... 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, with 55.27 doses per 100 people.