The CEO of Canadian airline company WestJet says it’s time for the vaccine mandate for air travellers and employees to be dropped.
“As vaccines are not preventing the spreading of the virus since [Omicron], there is no more logic to maintain it,” said Alexis von Hoensbroech
on Twitter on May 31.
“This will also relax some of the operational challenges at the airports.”
Von Hoensbroech, a Ph.D. in physics who previously worked for Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines, took the helm of WestJet in February.
He rapidly became a critic of Canada’s pandemic travel restrictions, questioning its mask mandate in March after a U.S. judge ordered the masking requirement for travel in her country to be
voided.
“Many of our guests are questioning, why [masking] is required on airplanes while it’s not when visiting a baseball stadium. We fully support fighting the pandemic, but inconsistencies make enforcement increasingly difficult,”
tweeted Von Hoensbroech on April 18.
Von Hoensbroech made
subsequent posts last month about the need to lift the mask mandate.
The Epoch Times reached out to WestJet for comment, but the company said it had nothing further to add beyond Von Hoensbroech’s tweet.
An international airline industry group, of which WestJet is a member, called on Ottawa last week to lift restrictions in order to alleviate airport bottlenecks.
“The relevant authorities must urgently consider removing the last remaining travel related COVID-19 restrictions and work with the industry on policies and processes which will allow passengers to pass through airports with no undue delay,”
said Peter Cerda, vice president of the International Air Transport Association, in the May 24 statement.
On May 27, Transport Canada
announced it was taking measures to address the long wait times at airports by forming a joint committee with stakeholder agencies and increasing staffing.
But there’s been no talk of lifting restrictions.
The Public Health Agency of Canada announced on May 31 that the current border measures for travellers entering Canada were being extended until at least June 30.
The Epoch Times contacted Air Canada for its view on vaccine mandates but didn’t hear back by publication time. Air Canada is also a member of the IATA.
