American airline company, Delta Air Lines, has announced that it would test all its 90,000 staff for coronavirus.
Delta says it will partner Mayo Clinic and Quest Diagnostics to get all employees tested, according to the AJC.
Chief Executive Officer, Ed Bastian, had announced last week that approximately 500 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 while 10 succumbed to the contagion.
“The vast majority have recovered, thankfully. Unfortunately, we have lost 10 employees to the disease,” Bastian said, according to Newsweek.
Every employee death “breaks my heart,” Bastian said according to a transcript from the shareholder meeting, which was conducted via phone. “We have stayed [in] very close contact with all of our employees, those that have contracted the disease.”
A spokesperson for the company added that the number of infected employees represents the total number of reported cases “since March out of our 90,000 employees worldwide.”
Despite these obvious setback, Delta have continued operations, though, providing social distancing on its flights when some major competitors are discontinuing that.
“Medical experts we’ve worked with advise that keeping middle seats blocked and limiting capacity makes a real difference in keeping travelers and our people safe on board — and our customers tell us it gives them peace of mind when they fly,” Ed Bastian wrote in a memo to employees.
“That’s why we extended our policy through September, and I expect we will continue to block middle seats beyond that date,” he added.
That comes after American and United airlines announced earlier this week that they are discontinuing such steps, and will fill flights to capacity — saying flying at far less than capacity is a business model that cannot be sustained. Also, the chief of United said that blocking middle seats is more of a PR strategy than one to protect safety.
However, others besides Delta also say it’s too early to fill planes to capacity safely. JetBlue is blocking middle seats through at least the end of July, and Southwest said it plans to block them through at least September.
Bastian wrote to Delta’s employees saying he feels the future of Delta depends on it being a leader in protecting the safety of its passengers and workers.
“With infection rates rising in some parts of the U.S., it becomes clearer every day that our resiliency will rely on our ability to be the leader in safe travel,” he wrote.
That includes requiring passengers to wear masks, and recently forming a partnership with the Mayo Clinic to have it review its cleaning and protection efforts. The airline also is expanding testing of its employees for COVID-19 to soon include at-airport testing in Salt Lake City.
“We’ve been providing testing for both the virus and antibodies at the airport and other facilities in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis and New York,” he said. “Later in July we’ll head to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and Seattle for onsite testing.”
The United States is the worst hit by the coronavirus with over 2.8 million confirmed cases and over 132,000 deaths.
