Speaker 1: It's Thursday, November eight. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America.
Speaker 1: Millions of Americans are expected to travel for Thanksgiving, and
Speaker 1: if you are heading out, you should expect delays. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest mysteries is how many T s A
Speaker 1: agents will be in compliance with vaccine mandates for federal
Speaker 1: workers set for November. The government doesn't think there will
Speaker 1: be any delays. The long way times are inevitable as
Speaker 1: T s A employers are leaving for other reasons too.
Speaker 1: Suzanne Rowan Killer, her staff writer at Forbes, joins us
Speaker 1: for how holiday travel could be a mess. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, Susanne, Thanks for having me. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving travel. It's gonna be very, very busy. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be one of the busiest, uh moments we've had so far,
Speaker 1: coming back from the pandemic and all of that, and
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of questions up in there. We've
Speaker 1: already seen a bunch of delays happening with various airlines
Speaker 1: and whatnot. The next big question people have is will
Speaker 1: the T s A be You ready have a very
Speaker 1: looming vaccine deadline coming for the t s A workers.
Speaker 1: They need to be fully vaccinated by Monday, November, and
Speaker 1: the t s A hasn't really given us a lot
Speaker 1: of details on what the compliance numbers have been, so
Speaker 1: that's one of the huge questions swirling around will they
Speaker 1: be ready? So Susanna tell us a little bit more
Speaker 1: about it. Well, you've got that right. Thanksgiving weekends always
Speaker 1: a huge travel weekend. It's usually one of the top
Speaker 1: weekends of the whole year. This year is going to
Speaker 1: definitely be just right up there. So what happened was
Speaker 1: that in mid October, the t s A administrator David
Speaker 1: Pakovsky told Shannon that there was about six percent of
Speaker 1: the t s A workforce but has been vaccinated, and
Speaker 1: she axpected that number to go quite a bit higher
Speaker 1: in the next few weeks. So since I covered that story,
Speaker 1: I would check in with the t s A every
Speaker 1: week and say how are the numbers? Do you have
Speaker 1: new numbers? And I kept getting, you know, just sort of,
Speaker 1: we don't have anything new. We don't know anything new.
Speaker 1: And that happened right up to this week, and then
Speaker 1: something else happened, which was yesterday there was a panel
Speaker 1: hearing at the House Homeland Security Committee. It was the
Speaker 1: Subcommittee for Transportation and Maritime Security. And one of the
Speaker 1: people testifying was Everett Kelly, who is the president of
Speaker 1: the union representing federal workers, so he represents seven thousand
Speaker 1: federal workers including t s A employees. And he was asked,
Speaker 1: does he know how many you know, how many people
Speaker 1: have been vaccinated at the t s A. And he
Speaker 1: said he didn't know. Everybody seemed to be going with
Speaker 1: this sixty percent number, which was the latest. Now I
Speaker 1: suspect that that number has gone quite a bit higher
Speaker 1: in the last five weeks, but we just don't know
Speaker 1: where that lies. Yeah, and you know, the bottom line
Speaker 1: they said was, you know, the long weight lines are
Speaker 1: just going to be there, which is not what anybody
Speaker 1: wants to hear. You know, they're saying that when it
Speaker 1: comes to the vaccine mandate that they're not going to
Speaker 1: really see any disruptions there. They think they'll be fine.
Speaker 1: But it's not just that they're saying that they're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of turnover. People are just quitting because you know,
Speaker 1: low wages, working conditions, basically what we've been seeing in
Speaker 1: various other sectors right now throughout the country so either way,
Speaker 1: they're kind of saying, might not see many disruptions here,
Speaker 1: but looking maybe towards December and the rest of the
Speaker 1: holiday season, there could be something happening. I think there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a long line to Thanksgiving. There's long lines.
Speaker 1: Even under the best of circumstances. People need to get
Speaker 1: to the airport early. I mean, that's just kind of
Speaker 1: a given. You might look out if you're going in
Speaker 1: a morning flight that those flights should kind of take
Speaker 1: off more on time. If you're plying out of a
Speaker 1: smaller regional airport, you probably have better luck. But people
Speaker 1: are just going to have to kind of bring their
Speaker 1: patients with them and assume that they're going to come
Speaker 1: upon these long lines. And you're right, they're part of
Speaker 1: a the union president effort Kelly actually pushed back a
Speaker 1: bit to some of the numbers of Compress who were saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, this vaccine mandate is making this problem, and
Speaker 1: he was saying, look, there's going to be aligned because
Speaker 1: of staffing. You know, we have staffing shortages. So it's
Speaker 1: a combination. It's sort of a perfect storm that's happening.
Speaker 1: And you're right, all across the country in all different industries,
Speaker 1: the airline industries. You mentioned the delays because of weather
Speaker 1: over the last few months, but that was also because
Speaker 1: of shortages. So what's happened is that people have in
Speaker 1: all different industries have left their jobs. Often they took
Speaker 1: retirement packages or you know, exit packages, and there hasn't
Speaker 1: been the staffing to kind of catch up. So we're
Speaker 1: I just think that people need to kind of go
Speaker 1: in there with a reality check that it's going to
Speaker 1: expect it, to be expected to be away, to get
Speaker 1: to the airport a lot earlier than you were planning
Speaker 1: on it, and then enjoy your holiday and a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Back to the vaccine mandate, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people have sought religious and medical exemptions for all
Speaker 1: of that. They're also there's is also this push by
Speaker 1: some of the unions to maybe push back the deadline
Speaker 1: to January four, that's the other deadline that they have
Speaker 1: for federal contractors and whatnot. They're saying, maybe you just
Speaker 1: push back till after the holidays and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe things could be a little bit better. You know,
Speaker 1: that might be something that was evert Kelly say in
Speaker 1: the in the panel yesterday, he said that the union
Speaker 1: wants to push it back to January four, so that
Speaker 1: both federal workers and federal contractors, who work often side
Speaker 1: by side, have the same deadline. This vaccine mandate, though
Speaker 1: was announced in July, people have known about it since July.
Speaker 1: I'm expecting, actually that the number of employees that the
Speaker 1: t s A That have been vaccinated is quite a
Speaker 1: bit higher, maybe in the eighties now. I think that
Speaker 1: the Customs of Border Patrols had numbers in the ad
Speaker 1: around now, and so I've expected to be kind of
Speaker 1: in that ballpark, maybe even a little bit higher. What
Speaker 1: looks like the vaccine mandates have worked at the airlines,
Speaker 1: there are definitely people who looked for the exemptions, but
Speaker 1: that's the minority. The you know that when the airlines
Speaker 1: did the vaccine mandate up into the nineties, that jumped,
Speaker 1: you know, and they were the Delta CEO bastions that
Speaker 1: they got stuck at seventy five percent. They were handing
Speaker 1: up parrots trying to incentivize people like I stuck at
Speaker 1: seventy five and then they didn't do a mandate in
Speaker 1: the sense. Delta did not do a mandate in the
Speaker 1: sense of saying you get vaccinated or you lose your job.
Speaker 1: But what they said, I think personally kind of amounts
Speaker 1: to a mandate. They said, well, if you don't get vaccinated,
Speaker 1: we're going to charge you two hundred dollars every month
Speaker 1: extra for your health in shirts. So that's another you know,
Speaker 1: that was definitely a stick that's gonna push, that's going
Speaker 1: to push them to adopted that much quicker, you know,
Speaker 1: definitely at that point exactly, and then jumped up. Their
Speaker 1: numbers jumped away too. So they've seen this all over
Speaker 1: travel that when the mandates come in, the numbers definitely
Speaker 1: go up. And the other thing in mind is that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people pushing for vaccine mandates,
Speaker 1: not just for the employees but for passengers. As you know,
Speaker 1: that's part of the international travel when people come into
Speaker 1: the US now they have to be vaccinated. And there
Speaker 1: was just a couple of dozen members of Congress that
Speaker 1: are pushing for that to be drifted over to the
Speaker 1: US travel. And when you look at surveys h since gosh,
Speaker 1: five six months now, steady, the American people are behind it.
Speaker 1: Every survey says two thirds of Americans want vaccine mandates
Speaker 1: for passengers. And you know there was a whole yesterday
Speaker 1: that came out of morning console. Only of Americans still
Speaker 1: comfortable flying right now. So yeah, it's an ongoing story
Speaker 1: and I'll put it that way. Yeah, definitely. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: see what Thanksgiving, how Thanksgiving shake out, and hopefully everybody
Speaker 1: gets to where they need to go and back in
Speaker 1: a timely manner. Suzanne Roland kelleher staff writer at Forbes
Speaker 1: covering travel trends, Thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America.
Speaker 1: Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can
Speaker 1: check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday
Speaker 1: through Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts