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Comment by himinlomax | Hacker News Reader

I don't find pilots refusing vaccines in significant numbers plausible in the slightest. Airline pilots have to comply with plenty of regulations and they're continuously trained to comply with safety regulations. Thus you don't become a pilot or don't remain one for long if you're allergic to safety regulations. If there's one occupation where expert recommendations are respected, it's aviation, and for good reasons -- the safety record of the industry speaks for itself.

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Pilots in the US are an extremely conservative bunch. On my pilot group's FB page, the number of times I've read "Let's go Brandon!" in response to this supposed sickout are numerous. Every trip I hear the far-right Breitbart, Newsmax media narrative, and links from similar pseudo news blog sites are posted all the time. It's impossible to fly to SFO or LAX without a comment on homelessness, taxes, liberals, etc. Once, when I happened to be alone on my way to the hotel, a van driver in Trinidad asked my why the pilots are always talking about guns. Many US airline pilots are full-on anti-vax and claim that they'll be fired before being forced to get the vaccine.

> On my pilot group's FB page

Social media has optimized the process of finding groups of people that think just exactly like you do. The fact that you are listening to one specific echo chamber that feels this way does not tell you that the entire industry feels this way.

Consider the following counter-example: United Airlines also has a vaccine mandate, and got well over 99% compliance.

I’ve been an airline pilot for a long time and work for a large airline. In the US, pilots tend to be quite culturally conservative. It’s not my naive generalization. Yes, if the mandate happens most will get vaccinated, but there will be plenty of kicking and screams leading up to it.

I have a lot of friends in ATC, and it's similar there. It's anecdotal, but I talked to two of them things morning. One said the sickout is indeed real, while the other says it absolute isn't. They are literally on other sides of the country from each other, so idk if it's regional or just bullshit.

Literally heard “Let’s go Brandon” on the emergency frequency today in airspace too far from land for it to not be an airliner or other commercial craft (in contrast to the usual meowing).

> United Airlines also has a vaccine mandate, and got well over 99% compliance.

But how many employees left UA along the way?

Not sure why you are getting downvoted - if you purge the unvaccinated of course the percentage of the remaining employees who are vaccinated is going to go up.

Hell the president was bragging that was exactly how they got to those percentages over the weekend.

Well united airlines employees also once beat a man unconscious and dragged him out of an airplane to make room for more united employees. Maybe they hire a different sort of person there.

Not only that, but pilots must go through extensive medical examination in order to get their medical certificates, and for Airline Transport Pilots (ATP) they need to get them renewed every 6 or 12 months, depending on their age. They are entirely used to their medical status gating their employment!

Just make COVID-19 vaccination a requirement to pass your medical, and be done with all this hand-wringing.

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