United Airlines will utilize a passenger-less aircraft to securely “extract” any pilot or crew member from abroad who is or may be contaminated with the coronavirus back to the United States.
Earlier this month, staff members got a memo entitled “International extraction treatment –– COVID affected crew member” that detailed how United will securely extract the team from a foreign nation to assist them to avoid quarantines or treatments unless essential, according to an internal United employee memo gotten by Skift.
Under the airline’s strategy, crew members will be designated to being in specific areas and will be informed which bathroom they can utilize. There are also guidelines on how they can consume and where they are allowed to deal with their trash, Skift reported.
Team members should not be put on any passenger flight, and they are supposed to be the last individual off of the airplane, once they reach their location.
“If no United airplane and/or crews are available to conduct the flight … the airline company will encourage of an alternative extraction or quarantine-in-place strategy,” the memo read.
The airline company also has an “extraction group” in place to deal with all the logistics of transporting the team members,
In the past, the Air Lines Pilots Association, the biggest airline pilot union on the planet, revealed issues over the risks that pilots and team members deal with when being forced to quarantine in foreign nations.
In July, the FedEx Express system of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’ l (ALPA) called on their business to suspend operations in Hong Kong after COVID-19 favorable asymptomatic FedEx pilots were “forced into mandated hospital facilities.”
A number of other pilots who evaluated unfavorable for COVID-19, but who had been in close contact with a COVID-19 positive individual, were likewise put “into federal government camps under extremely hard conditions,” ALPA stated.
“Not only do these circumstances pose unacceptable threats to our pilots’ security and wellbeing, but however they also produce added tension and interruption for flight operations,” Capt. Dave Chase, FedEx ALPA master executive council chairman stated.
United confirmed to FOX Organization that the airline has strategies in location if a crew member would need to be flown back to the U.S. from abroad however decreased to share any information.
“The health and security of our employees and passengers are our highest top priorities,” United said.