Emirates runs 1st vaccinated flight

KARACHI: Emirates on Tuesday become the first airline in the world to operate a flight with fully vaccinated frontline teams, servicing customers at every touchpoint of the travel journey, a statement said.

This morning, the full airport and onboard customer experience for flight EK215, which departed Dubai at 0830hrs for Los Angeles, was safely supported by check-in, security, Business, and First Class lounges and boarding gate employees, as well as engineers, pilots, and cabin crew who chose to be fully vaccinated, it added.

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 a pace just over a month ago, and since then, close to 26,000, or 44 percent of the Group’s UAE frontline aviation workforce have received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Sinopharm vaccines, the statement said. Nearly 5,000 Cabin and flight deck crew have opted to receive both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Besides, thousands more Emirates Group employees in other roles have taken their COVID-19 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, it added.