COVID-19: Emirates Operates First Flight with Fully Vaccinated Team

Emirates today operated its first flight with fully vaccinated frontline teams against COVID-19 servicing customers at every touchpoint of the flight, becoming one of the first airlines in the world to do so.

Flight EK215, which departed Dubai at 0830hrs for Los Angeles, was operated by a Boeing 777-300ER.

The flight was safely supported by check-in, security, Business and First Class lounge and boarding gate employees, as well as engineers, pilots, and cabin crew who made the choice to be fully vaccinated.

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

The Emirates Group rolled out its vaccination drive at pace just over a month ago, and since then, close to 26,000, or 44%, of the Group’s UAE frontline aviation workforce have received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Sinopharm vaccines.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) currently has one of the world’s highest rates of vaccinations for its citizens and residents as it fights to curb the spread of COVID-19.

So far, the UAE has administered over 5.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, and Our World In Data, a research website based at Oxford University, recently reported that the country’s distribution rate stands at 55.27 doses per 100 people, ranking it the second highest in the world.