Pilots protest Biden’s vaccine mandate outside North Carolina airport: ‘Enough is enough’

Travel expert Mark Murphy talks about vaccination mandates for airline employees, vacation travel in the event of flight cancellations and rental car prices.

At a major North Carolina airport, pilots protested against President Biden’s new vaccine mandate on Saturday as the aviation industry already grappled with staff shortages amid a vaccination surge.

A group called US Freedom Flyers held a rally outside Charlotte-Douglas International Airport on Saturday as large airline pilots and other supporters protested Biden’s latest policy requiring all private companies with 100 or more employees to enforce vaccination requirements from Jan. 4. Fox 8 reports. The 5th US appeals court in Louisiana on Saturday granted an emergency suspension of the vaccine request by the federal occupational health and safety agency.

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“We’re out here today because we’re tired of the mandate. We’re tired of being told our bodies are not ours,” Artemis Coburn, a major airline pilot, told the station. “All that matters is that enough is enough and we will take a stand, and that is our position.”

Pilots speaking to the outlet said they could not disclose which airline they worked for as it would violate their employment contracts. The temporary stay on Biden’s orders won’t take effect immediately, and the next deadline for his federal mandate is December 5, when businesses with more than 100 employees must require unvaccinated employees to wear masks indoors.

If the mandate goes into effect, 84 million private sector workers could be asked by their employers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly tests.

“When it really counts, it will be catastrophic for the aviation industry,” said Joshua Yoder, co-founder of US Freedom Flyers. “You cannot afford to lose 10% of your employees, let alone 20-30% in the various work groups.”

These percentages are based on the estimated number of employees in the aviation industry who have resisted the vaccine for medical, religious or other concerns, Yoder said.

“Our governments, our companies, our union, and even many of our colleagues are not defending freedom, so we have to fill the void,” said Robert Soudher, another co-founder of US Freedom Flyers.

This came after American Airlines canceled nearly 2,000 flights over the Halloween holiday weekend due to staff shortages as high winds at the airline’s main hub at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport prevented some employees from catching their next flights. That followed Columbus Day weekend in early October, when Southwest Airlines also canceled hundreds of flights because some employees speculated they were sick in protest of vaccine mandates – which the Southwest Pilots Union vigorously denied, Texas Monthly reported.

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