Dubai’s Emirates operates first flight with vaccinated crew at all customer touchpoints

Dubai carrier Emirates has operated its first flight serviced by fully vaccinated frontline teams across all customer touchpoints.

The full airport and onboard customer experience of Emirates flight EK215 to Los Angeles, which departed Dubai at 8.30am today, was supported by over 70 vaccinated team members covering check-in, security, Business and First Class lounge and boarding gate employees, as well as engineers, pilots and cabin crew.

Also supporting the flight’s operations were fully vaccinated aircraft appearance, loading and special handling teams from dnata, as well as Emirates SkyCargo teams working on the cargo and logistics requirements for EK215.

The Emirates group rolled out its vaccination drive over a month ago, and since then, close to 26,000, or 44 per cent, of its 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: “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.”

Nearly 5,000 cabin and flight deck crew have opted to receive both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. In addition, thousands more in other roles have taken their Covid-19 vaccine through the company’s clinics and vaccination centres, while others have opted to take their shots at vaccination centres across the UAE.

Al Redha added: “At the outset of the pandemic, Emirates implemented robust safety measures to protect and prioritise the safety of our customers and employees at all stages of the travel journey, and 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 Emirates Group’s vaccination centres have been running 12 hours a day, every day of the week to prioritise and provide aviation frontliners with the vaccine. The UAE has administered over 5.4 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, so far.

Earlier this month, Emirates announced that its 32 self-service bag drop machines and 16 check-in kiosks can now be controlled completely by mobile phones without the need to touch the screens. The kiosks allow customers to check-in, receive their boarding pass, choose seats on board, and drop off their bags.

Read: Emirates introduces touchless self check-in kiosks at Dubai International Airport